The first time we dove into the topic of food waste, Diane visited a compost facility, Erik spent an afternoon with the leftover food distribution initiative, the Stanford Project on Hunger, and Dana Gunders of NRDC gave us the low-down on one of her recent reports.

Food waste reduction campaign in Saudi Arabia. Photo by Diane Wu.

40% of food that is prepared in the US is wasted, dropped in the trash, untouched. This is alarming, especially when we consider all the water, fossil fuel energy, time, and effort involved in delivering food. The Green Grid Radio team became preoccupied by this sobering reality and decided to be more proactive about reducing food waste. We decided to pull back our hair, grab some gloves, and give dumpster diving a chance.

Beyond the novelty of the experience, can dumpster diving be a strategy in a broader effort to reduce our community’s impact? Can it move the food waste needle?

Listen here:

The next GGR episode coming in January will investigate the fermented, flushed world of biofuels.

Produced and co-hosted by Diane Wu and Adam Pearson and featuring GGR staff Erik Olesund and Mallory Smith. The voices of interceptors, friends, and guests on this podcast include: Stephanie Pollack and Maxine Lym . Resources mentioned this episode include: The Dating Game, a recent NRDC report on food date labels and food waste: and Stilltasty.com, a “shelf life guide” website. The music that graced our ears came from: Kevin MacLeod, Keep Them Alive, Malt.Tabulated Sounds, nisei23, Tussle, krackatoa, and Derek Mendez.

We’re inspired by many local groups addressing food waste head-on, including: Be Healthy Tulare;  Tulare CA Food Bank; Stanford Glean; Stanford Project on Hunger . If there are people and initiatives minimizing food waste in your community, please let us know via twitter and we’ll include them in this post!