Report:
Our group had five members so we were able to delegate tasks pretty well. When we first decided on our protest method Jasmine decided to make the design for the flyer, John was in charge of taking pictures and documenting our strategy while Ruby, Nathan, and I were on the front lines approaching people and handing out flyers. We decided to do this at the Ikenberry because it’s the main dining hall on campus and therefore the best place to reach the largest amount of people. When we arrived at the Ike to implement our strategy we noticed a large poster at the entrance urging people to be more conscious about food waste. This surprised us because it aligned perfectly with our protest.
I think our biggest challenge as a group was the crowd of people we targeted. Handing out flyers to hungry freshman who were on their way to eat was not the most fun experience because, as the other group in class showed, people don’t enjoy being approached by random people handing out flyers. The last thing a hungry student wants is to be stopped and lectured about food waste moments before making it inside the dining hall. However, we were able to convince a good amount of people to take our flyers and hear our elevator speech on the importance of reducing food waste. Surprisingly, most people were nice and receptive!
We chose this strategy because it was the best option for us given our limited resources and time constraint. If we had more time and more resources we would have implemented another one of our strategies such as contacting the dining services to see if we could coordinate the excess food to be sent to a food kitchen or homeless shelter. The main lesson I learned as a result of this project is that protesting is not easy. It’s time consuming and requires a lot of effort. People are usually grounded in their habits and opinions. It’s difficult to convince people to change a habit that they’ve carried with them their entire lives. However, it was a fun to educate people who otherwise would not have been aware of this issue.
Food Waste Manifesto:
Pride. Envy. Wrath. Lust. Sloth. Greed. Gluttony. The 7 deadly sins that can never be forgiven. Here in America we embody all of these and more. As a nation we are fat, lazy, selfish, and above all extremely wasteful. We produce an overabundance of food and refuse to think twice about filling our plates and oversized stomachs to the brim only to end up throwing most of it out. We turn a blind eye to our bad habits because we live in a comfortable bubble of excess. We are okay with our vices because the hungry children and families are nowhere to be seen. They are far away on another continent in that infomercial that airs at 3am when there is nothing else to watch on TV.
As our population continues to grow, so do our waist lines and wasteful habits. Americans produce enough food to feed nearly half the world’s population and we waste over a third of that amount. It’s a shame we’re able to continue this disgusting habit while millions of people go hungry on a daily basis around the world. It’s easy for us to justify our wasteful tendencies because we are short sighted and live in a country where we suppress our problems and insecurities with food. We take more than we can eat and dump the rest because we only care about ourselves and what’s directly in front of us. We don’t know what it feels like to go hungry, but millions of people do. Our excessive food waste is not a symbol of our wealth or prosperity. It’s not cute. It’s reprehensible. It’s disgusting. It’s wrong. It should be illegal. Restaurants, schools, and individuals should be held accountable for wasting large amounts of food. Next time you decide to stuff your face with food make sure you lick the plate clean.
DIY Video:
Infographic:
Sources:
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf
http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/