Trash Talk: Fresh Takes on Food Waste
Climate One
Food recycling vs. composting: broader pathways
Matt defines 'food recycling' as multiple reuse routes: soil, animal feed, or energy, beyond composting.
Food loss and waste account for up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions and cost $1 trillion annually, according to the United Nations. About a third of all food grown on the planet gets wasted, rather than eaten. In developing countries, waste usually occurs between the field and the store, due to poor infrastructure, lack of refrigeration, and broken supply chains. In rich countries, most waste happens after food reaches the store, where consumers don’t buy imperfect food – or buy too much and toss what they don’t get around to consuming. How much pollution, deforestation and starvation could be reduced if we got this problem under control? And how can new tech, including AI, be brought to bear on the problem?
Guests:
Matt Rogers, Co-Founder and CEO, Mill Industries; Co-Founder, Nest
Page Schult, CEO, Topanga
Kayla Abe, Co-Owner, Shuggie’s
David Murphy, Co-Owner and Chef, Shuggie’s
For show notes, related links, and episode transcript, visit climateone.org/podcasts.
Highlights:
00:00 – Intro
04:30 – Matt Rogers on surviving Hurricane Andrews and his climate journey
06:30 – On the climate impact of HVAC and the creation of Nest thermostat
08:30 – On creating Mill food recycler and addressing food waste
13:45 – Partnership with Whole Food to recycle food waste and feed it back to chickens
17:00 – On AI as a tool for climate solutions
19:30 – Clean tech in Silicon Valley
23:00 – Matt Rogers shares his views on advocacy, philanthropy and impact investing
30:00 – Shuggie’s restaurant sources ingredients that would otherwise be wasted
37:00 – David Murphy makes the case for sustainable food and upcycled ingredients
40:00 – Page Schult on global impact of food waste
44:00 – Topanga’s work providing reusable food containers for college campuses
52:30 – Thinking about it circularity as systems change
54:00 – Role of AI in reducing food waste in commercial kitchens
58:00 – Climate One More Thing
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