A new study published by the scientific journal Plos One—co-authored by PhD student Danyi Qi and Professor Brian Roe of Ohio State University—found that food waste has yet to become a pressing issue for most consumers.

In July 2015, 500 people representative of the U.S. population were surveyed. Of the respondents, 58% said they knew that food waste was bad for the environment and 77% of respondents felt guilty about it. Yet, 53% of respondents said they're not willing to change their behavior and the same percentage thought it would be hard for their household to do so.

Despite ongoing coverage of scientific literature showing that date labels aren't linked to food safety, 70% of respondents said they thought throwing away food after its expiration date helped reduce the potential of food-borne illness. The concept that some food needs to be wasted in order to ensure meal freshness and quality was supported by 59% of respondents.

The fact that an estimated 40% of food is wasted in the U.S. every year and the country has a goal of reducing food waste 50% by 2030 are well-publicized at this point. The issue has brought celebrity chefs to Capitol Hill and a bill proposed by Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine that would standardize date labels has also received lots of coverage. Yet outside of the waste and food industries this issue still doesn't seem to be resonating with consumers.

The study found that 24% of respondents think they're too busy to worry about it. One would think that financial factors might get people's attention, but only 42% of respondents recognized that wasted food equals wasted money. In an even more telling statistic, only 14% of respondents thought that they wasted more food than households of a similar size.

In conclusion, the study's authors say that education around food date labeling would be a useful step forward. Organizations such as Harvard's Food Law and Policy Clinic have been very active on label reform and initiatives such as the Natural Resources Defense Council's "Save the Food" campaign are trying to give the issue national attention.

By Cole Rosengren | July 25, 2016

You might have listened several times:  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – the three ways to reduce solid waste. You might have been impressed to observe their rhythmic phonic. But you hardly have understood its real spirit because such words have become quite a buzzword in our social sector.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: What the heck are they?

Reduce

It is the first element of entire phrase of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It seems very simple but it is actually the litmus test of our environmental friendliness. If we follow this tip we have to entirely change our whole life style. Did you ever see a customer insisting the shopkeeper stuff as many articles in a small bag as possible? This is called reduce. It aims to use the things as little as possible because we throw them away after their use. Cans, bags, bottles or any such articles we use to carry or store things we must use in minimum number. Its easy example is use of paper. Write down on both the sides of a paper and don’t stop here even write in its margin over the header and footer; means fully use it then throw it away. This is the basic spirit of the reuse.

Reuse

How easy it is to say reuse. But we sometimes make it a status symbol to throw away a thing after its use and avoid using it again. Did you ever see a person received a greeting card and reused its envelope by sending back the card to sender in the same envelope by just pasting a name tag over it? Is it very funny? It seems very funny but actually it has a purpose. So make reuse your habit. Whenever and wherever possible reuse the things if they are not harmful to do so.

Recycle

It sounds so technical and we look to factories which recycle the things. In most of the cases we can do it by ourselves. Keep the leftover rice of overnight and mix it into freshly boiled vegetables and yummy sauces the next day and enjoy a Chinese cuisine. Put some glaze paper around the tin of a cold drink and use it as a pen keeper. Here also you have to apply your creativity to keep recycling going. In this way we can save our environment from garbage pollution as much as we can through these three killer tips. Do your share to care for our environment.

*Written by Mimuba - www.pollutionpollution.com

• A team of six students from Rice University have created a prototype called the BioBlend for in-home food waste processing. The motor-operated unit is attached to a garbage disposal under the sink to further grind up food and strain out the water. The resulting material can be used for composting or biogas generation.
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• The students are also working on a website that would track user input volumes, provide advice on which items are best for composting, and provide alerts if the capture drawer was full or left open.

The students began working on this project after the school's Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen tasked them with finding a way to change user behavior. Prototypes will be installed at the Chalmers University of Technology's HSB Living Lab in Sweden for further testing by students in residence. Local organics collection is available in that area of Sweden and students could potentially set the material they process through their BioBlends out for pick-up.

The use of in-sink garbage disposals has seen a resurgence lately. They've been recommended as a cheaper option for collecting organics in New York and Philadelphia has begun mandating them in new homes as of this year.

While the device will be useful in raising awareness among residents of the food they're disposing, it's unclear what role it would play in existing collection systems. Curbside programs accept most types of organic waste regardless of its consistency and many cities with in-sink disposal units are recovering gas from the material at anaerobic digestion facilities. The units could be useful for areas that don't have biogas recovery systems or for residents that want to do at-home composting.

By Cole Rosengren | July 1, 2016 www.wastedive.com

A county in Washington state has over the past decade developed a recycling promotion event that draws tens of thousands of attendees, all while supporting markets for recovered materials.

Located in downtown Vancouver, Wash. and held annually on the last weekend in June, Clark County's Recycled Arts Festival was started 11 years ago to help educate and engage the public in the county of over 420,000 residents.

The two-day festival this year featured over 150 vendors selling artwork or goods made from reused, recovered or recycled materials collected in the region. Items on display included ukuleles made from recovered cigar boxes, new fashions made from scrap clothing and delicate butterflies made from used cans of soda.

But the event does more than highlight local artisans – it also acts as a powerful outreach tool.

As residents are perusing the recycled artwork for sale, they are also getting an education on diversion and sustainable activities. Sprinkled throughout the festival are numerous exhibits from Clark County's various environmental departments and efforts, such as its Master Composter & Recycler program, Washington State University's Master Gardener program and the Clark County Habitat for Humanity Store.

"Our goal with this festival is really to raise awareness about waste reduction," Sally Fisher, festival project manager from the Clark County Department of Environmental Services, said in a video posted on Facebook following the event. "And hopefully inspire [others] to be as interested and passionate about waste reduction and creative reuse as we are."

Fisher also noted more than 75 percent of the funding for the event comes from exhibition fees and the event's sponsors, a varied group including the Clark County's primary hauler, Waste Connections, as well as local financial institutions and auto dealerships.

One booth at the festival, Tossed & Found, educates residents on how some of the materials and products that they bring into their homes can be recycled, reused or composted. A craft table at the exhibit allowed kids to turn recovered materials into art of their own, with leftover reusable materials heading to the area Humane Society’s ReTails Thrift Store after the festival.

By Dylan de Thomas, Resource Recycling- July 5, 2016

The Fibrex Group is pleased to introduce the first Steora Smart Bench available in the United States, and a business partnership with Include.  Steora was invented by Wiz-Kid Innovator Ivan Mrvos of Include j.d.o.o in the Republic of Croatia.  Include has developed the most technologically advanced and attractive solar smart bench on the market today.

Steora Smart Bench’s unique design provides self-sustaining green solar energy to power a large suite of applications such as cell phone charging, WiFi Hot-Spot Internet Connection, area LED lighting, sensor data gathering capabilities and temperature control.  Yes, it even has a built-in cooling fan system to keep the seating area below 80F on hot days!

Steora Smart Bench is a sustainable gathering space to socialize and stay connected. Steora also brings a note of ultra-modern design that can enhance or blend in with existing urban landscapes but will always draw attention. Being on the front edge of innovation, the Steora Smart Bench will make a visible and functional green statement for years to come.

Transform your properties to be smarter and greener with the Steora Smart Bench. Public spaces want to support and attract the mobile generation by providing more charging device options than ever before. Welcome Steora to become an essential part of your modern, daily life.

Steora is by far the most advanced solar smart bench on the market and is optimized for continuous public use. It was developed to satisfy the future needs of sustainable and smart connected urban spaces.   By creatively harnessing green solar energy, the Steora Smart Bench provides USB and wireless cell phone charging, mobile WIFI hot-spot Internet, area lighting, seat cooling, local advertising information, sensor and data gathering features.

The Fibrex Group, Inc. is known for its original product line of innovative green design site furnishings, solar bollards and playground equipment.  We are very excited about our latest entry in the smart urban furniture market and look forward to working with the early IoT and Smart City adaptors.  Steora benches are in stock and ready to be shipped from our warehouse in Virginia.