Visual Aid: Table Scraps — Taking on Food Waste in Greater Phoenix

By Lauren Cusimano

Wednesday, July 22, 2020 at 9 a.m.

Lauren Cusimano A beginner's guide to DIY composting. 1/71

Lauren Cusimano All of this can go in your compost pile. 2/71

Courtesy of The Urban Farm Completed compost, or "black gold." 3/71

Lauren Cusimano Entrance to the 27th Avenue Transfer Station. 4/71

Lauren Cusimano The compost bins available at the 27th Avenue Transfer Station. 5/71

Lauren Cusimano Expiration dates — what does this shit even mean? 6/71

Courtesy of Christopher Wharton Christopher Wharton, an Arizona State University associate professor of nutrition and assistant dean of innovation and strategic initiatives. 7/71

Lauren Cusimano It's just a communication, not an expiration. 8/71

Lauren Cusimano Tales from the inaugural Sustainable Packaging Expo. 9/71

Lauren Cusimano The Sustainable Packaging Expo was held at the appropriate Arizona Heritage Center. 10/71

Lauren Cusimano Two local bakers looking for sustainable packaging options. 11/71

Lauren Cusimano Going beyond the wrapper to tackle food packaging waste. 12/71

Andrew Pielage The drive-thru window is nice, but in some cases, there's more harm than convenience. 13/71

Lauren Cusimano Sure, a 3 p.m. pick-me-up is needed, but there has to be another way. 14/71

Lauren Cusimano But, it's not all bad. "We can actually see decreases in air pollution throughout the city.” 15/71

Waste NOT Waste NOT is a delivery service in Phoenix taking food to those in need that would otherwise be discarded. 16/71

Waste NOT Last year, Waste NOT diverted 1,750 tons of food from local landfills. 17/71

Waste NOT Seeing the other side. 18/71

Waste NOT Executive director Kate Thoene with children on Phoenix Day. 19/71

nrd on Unsplash The tale of the leftover. 20/71

Monika Grabkowska on Unsplash Leftovers have come a long way. 21/71

Eiliv-Sonas Aceron on Unsplash Leftovers can help us fight food waste. 22/71

Wrigley Mansion Geordie’s chef de cuisine Ashley Goddard has a special relationship with leftovers. 23/71

Chatnarin Pramnapan on Unsplash You can certainly feed some animals food scraps — if it’s done safely and lawfully. 24/71

Lauren Cusimano The Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and the Food Recovery Project has something to say about all this. 25/71

Lauren Cusimano Check out the handy AFGFD guide on captive desert tortoise diets. 26/71

Lauren Cusimano The designated tortoise scraps bin at The Farish House in downtown Phoenix. 27/71

Christopher Carson on Unsplash These little guys come with their own protection act. 28/71

Lauren Cusimano Chuck, a friendly neighborhood goat in Mesa, is treated to some bread scraps. 29/71

Lauren Cusimano How can shopping smart reduce your household food waste? First, don't overbuy. 30/71

Lauren Cusimano We could all shop a little smarter and waste a little less. 31/71

Lauren Cusimano Keep like 10 of these in your car. 32/71

Santeri Viinamäki/Wikipedia Making a list is one of the best ways to avoid overbuying. 33/71

Massimo Rivenci/Unsplash Ugly carrots are carrots, too. 34/71

Lucas Benjamin/Unsplash How to be smarter about storing food about the kitchen. 35/71

Ella Olsson/Unsplash Are there better ways to store our produce till that test run or family dinner? 36/71

Dev Benjamin / Unsplash Start jamming your fruits and veggies in the freezer. 37/71

nrd/Unsplash Stay true to the first in, first out, routine. 38/71

Lauren Cusimano A cilantro bouquet. 39/71

Lauren Cusimano I audibly gasped at a Target the first time I saw Igloo’s Recool model. 40/71

Eco with Em And there are all sorts of ways to not use plastic. 41/71

Tyler Wesson Don't heed the call of the cups. 42/71

Lauren Cusimano Yes, there are alternatives. 43/71

Lauren Cusimano Yes, there are recycling options now — if you do it. Do you? 44/71

Lauren Cusimano Are these machines all that durable? 45/71

R. City The Valley's own R. City is a a food waste pickup service that uses your food waste and compostables for to rejuvenate farmland in south Phoenix. 46/71

Lauren Cusimano An R. City food waste receptacle at Phoenix City Hall. 47/71

Lauren Cusimano Food waste collection instructions at Phoenix City Hall. 48/71

Lauren Cusimano We get it. You can't have this setup in an apartment. Good thing there's a food waste pickup service in Phoenix. 49/71

Dylan de Jonge/Unsplash It's all about Farmland for the Future. 50/71

R. City 51/71

R. City A look at that five-gallon bucket. 52/71

Danielle Leoni Danielle Leoni, co-owner and chef of The Breadfruit & Rum Bar, is a pillar of sustainable restauranting. 53/71

Steven Lasry/Unsplash A beautiful head of Romanesco. 54/71

Chris Malloy If you call yourself a chef or culinarian, it means that you are creative. 55/71

Chris Malloy Think: Which part of this don’t I have a plan for? 56/71

Chris Malloy If you know the story, you may be less quick to toss. 57/71

Lauren Cusimano Pour some rum on it for the love of it. 58/71

Musically Fed Musically Fed normally looks to music venues, but now, the local organization is turning to restaurants to feed those in need. 59/71

Musically Fed Food waste is still being fought during the pandemic. 60/71

Lauren Cusimano If you've been cut off from your away-from-home compost receptacle, ShareWaste can help. 61/71

Postmates A Postmate will show up to your restaurant within 20 minutes to pick up excess food donations. 62/71

Catt Liu/Unsplash Worried about kitchen waste? Water is part of that. 63/71

Elizabeth Whitman You know, because water's a little tight out in the desert. 64/71

Nathan Dumlao/Unsplash There's a way to do it. And a way to overdo it. 65/71

Lauren Cusimano Think about the way you do dishes. Maybe get this book. 66/71

Harry Grout/Unsplash Make the kitchen your water conserving station. 67/71

Edward Howell/Unsplash Either garbage bags need to calm down or we do. 68/71

David Levêque/Unsplash As Columbia University’s Earth Institute stated last year: “The only surefire way to be truly eco-friendly about trash bags is to create less trash, so you don’t need as many!” 69/71

Jason Dent/Unsplash Toss limes in with the garbage. (You can do this with lemons or citrus peels as well.) The juice adds a citrusy scent to the can, or it at least neutralizes the intensity of the garbage smell (or prevents it from getting to that point). 70/71

Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash Roughly one million housekeeping websites advise treating your less-than-fresh garbage with a few drops of extract or essential oil. 71/71

Visual Aid: Table Scraps — Taking on Food Waste in Greater Phoenix

Maybe you’re a regular reader. Maybe this is your first go-around. Either way, welcome to Table Scraps. This roundup is from my online series on the growing issue of food waste and what some Phoenix-area eateries, organizations, and everyday people are doing right.

But there’s something I want to be clear about from the start — this isn’t a guilt trip. This is my way of unpacking initiatives attempting to reduce kitchen waste and food loss.

We’ve explored backyard composting to food packaging, nonprofits to etiquette history, and a few other topics relating to this global issue — including some drive-thru shaming (sorry).

So, heat up those leftovers and settle in. Here’s an entire slideshow — to accompany the condensed collection — of all the Table Scraps stories so far.

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