the UW Sustainability blog
When thinking about sustainability and food, it's important to think about how the food was produced. Food production and transport can be a significant contributor to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions, while increasing temperatures and changing weather patterns can disrupt the production and availability of food.
Today, around one third of food produced in the US ends up as waste. Unnecessarily and improperly disposed food waste can exacerbate the climate crisis. When thrown into landfills, food waste generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas, while also wasting the fuel and energy used for the product’s production and transportation.
The Sustainability staff at the UW Bothell, Tacoma and Seattle campuses are jointly hosting a Winter speaker series around Climate Change and Food Systems. The series will include virtual events, as well as an in-person event on each of the three campuses. Events will be weekly from January 18 to February 22.
Please register to receive the Zoom link for any of the virtual events, as well as to indicate interest in the in-person events.
The Washington State Department of Ecology is encouraging groups working on food waste to be a partner in Food Waste Prevention Week happening April 10-16.
Food Waste Prevention Week is a national awareness and education movement including online and in-person events. Cities, states, universities and other organizations have partnered around the effort.
For organizations interested in becoming a partner, there are two upcoming national Partner Info Sessions:
The Whole U and UW Sustainability are partnering to host a series of virtual conversations around sustainable and ethical food systems.
Sessions will feature experts in the following areas:
As part of National Campus Sustainability Month earlier this quarter, representatives from all three UW campuses came together to discuss topics around food systems and our campus resources.
Update: the video from this event is posted below
Post by Gabrielle Coeuille, UW Recycling Waste Diversion & Reduction Intern
When we go to the grocery store, it’s hard to avoid plastic. From produce, to meat, to dairy - packaging is everywhere. Plastic has become so entwined with our food system that it is hard to remember a time when all your seasonal berries didn’t come in a carton that lasts practically forever. So I asked myself this question:
UW graduate student Jonathan Chen has created a UW Food System COVID-19 Survey to better understand how COVID-19 has impacted people's access to food on UW Seattle’s campus. Anyone affiliated with UW Seattle who is 18 or over is invited to participate and enter a drawing to win a $50 gift card to the University Bookstore. Documenting your experience during this difficult time can help improve things for the future.
This is a guest post from 10-year-old Sharda Shah, the daughter of Mauli Shah who works in UW Medicine’s IT Department. As they have been looking for projects at home, this Earth Month they found a solar cooker sitting unused in their shed and decided to try it out. Here are Sharda’s thoughts on using a solar cooker, and how it shows solar energy can be useful even at small scales.