Green Grid Radio

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Tag Archives: food waste


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S4E2: Dumpster Diver Interceptors

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.

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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!


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S3E5: The Lowest Hanging Fruit is The One in the Landfill

In this week’s episode, we’re covering food waste!! Listen below for some myth busting on expiration dates and the real story of what’s happening to those compostable forks.

P1040603A picture from our tour of the Newby Island Resource Recovery Park’s compost facility. This is a compost windrow before it gets filtered. Photograph by Diane Wu.

Guests include Stanford student Nicole Gaetjens; Julie Muir, Community Relations Manager at Peninsula Sanitary Service, Inc; Dana Gunders, Project Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Elena Stamatakos and Mahta Baghoolizadeh, volunteers with the Stanford Project on Hunger.

Hosted by Diane Wu and Mallory Smith.

Resources mentioned in this podcast include stilltasty.com (Is your leftover pizza still good?), American Wasteland (Want to read a whole book about this?), and this NRDC report  (here are the highlights). Here’s more on the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act.

Music featured, in chronological order, by Bad Bats, Abe Sada, Cranston, The LibraryAnns, Mark Neil, Krackatoa.


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S3E3: Stanford Energy Week – Live from White Plaza!

S3E3: Stanford Energy Week - Live from White Plaza!GGR Producers Adam Pearson, Erik Olesund and guests Debra Dunn, Sarah Triolo (photograph by Diane Wu).

As Earth Day approaches on the Stanford campus, Green Grid Radio and other environmentally-minded affiliates on campus are reaching out to the broader Stanford community for engagement. Wednesday in White Plaza featured Green Grid Radio broadcasting live during the Stanford Energy Club’s Energy Showcase event. With technical assistance from producer Diane Wu and KZSU engineer Mark Lawrence, Green Grid Radio brought a solar-powered (literally– see our photo below!) episode with an appropriate lunch-time focus on food systems.

S3E3: Stanford Energy Week - Live from White Plaza!Solar-powered radio (photograph by Diane Wu).

We had a great, lengthy discussion with our guests this week, Ms. Debra Dunn and Sarah Triolo. Sarah recommended this supplemental reading from the New York Times on some of the “nasty things happening in our food system” today. Thanks to all the audience input and for the support out in White Plaza. Take a listen below, and see you next week!