WHAT A
Californians throw away 11 billion pounds of food each year — a new recycling law aims to reuse it
It ’ s Friday evening . You ’ re famished and tired after a long week , so you get takeout . You wolf down chips with a side of guacamole and can only finish half of your overstuffed burrito , so you wrap up the rest and put it in the fridge . Saturday morning , you make a smoothie before your run . You add juice , spinach and frozen fruit , but your avocados that were too hard just a couple days ago squish , and your bananas are battlescarred and spotted .
That afternoon , it ’ s lunchtime for the kids . You rummage through the fridge and find that loaf of bread your friend raved about but your kids won ’ t eat . And last week ’ s bowl of chili has grown a coat of fur . You hoped to turn that gorgeous , shiny , purple eggplant you bought from the food delivery service into a dish that melts in your mouth the way it does at the Afghan restaurant down the street . But it ’ s sunken and liquified , and your finger punctures its skin when you try to pick it up .
It ’ s Sunday . You root around looking for something to eat . You peel back the foil and paper , revealing the other half of your burrito . The edge of the wrap is dry and curled and the bottom is a soggy mess . You clean out the fridge . It looks bare and you decide it ’ s time for a grocery run — restarting the cycle of food waste that many American households are trapped in .
Some households compost food scraps . In fact , according to a 2017 survey by Statista , 32 percent of U . S . adults 18-29 years of age own a compost bin . That percentage decreases
84 comstocksmag . com | March 2022