Food Waste Awareness Week | Saturday, April 21

Boulder County Colorado sent this bulletin at 04/21/2018 08:10 AM MDT

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Food Waste Awareness Week | Saturday, April 21

Lettuce in the fieldIf you care about climate change, you care about food waste.

Boulder County residents and businesses are doing a great job of getting food scraps into the compost bin rather than the landfill, but there’s a lot more we could all be doing to reduce food waste before it gets to the point of composting!


The EPA’s food recovery hierarchy identifies source reduction, feeding hungry people, feeding animals, and industrial uses as options to consider before placing your food in the compost bin. Using food for consumption purposes has huge environmental benefits such as saving water, mitigating greenhouse gases, and reducing transportation emissions.
Food waste ends with you

Action Steps

Avoid tossing food too soon with these simple tricks:

  • Trust your senses – oftentimes food will smell, look, or taste bad once it’s spoiled.
  • Freeze your food – a good way to extend the life of your food is to freeze it; and almost anything can be frozen. Check out some tips from Save the Food.
  • Learn the lingo: “Sell-by” is meant for store staff, “Best Before” deals with quality rather than food safety

Today's Tip: 
Sell-by/Use-by

“Sell by” “Use by” “Best before”….these are confusing terms! Did you know that food expiration dates are the manufacturer’s best estimate of when the product is at its “peak” rather than having to do with food safety? Many foods are still good to eat days, weeks, even months after the date printed on the package! Up to 90% of us throw away our food too soon wasting time, money, and resources.

Learn more about deciphering dates on your food products from Save the Food. 

Milk carton