R A C H E L H A M R I C K
E N V I R O N M E N T A L D E S I G N
E A T W E E K
A U B U R N , A L A B A M A
This project began shortly after I began working at a local oyster bar. Every day, I would see servers throw away countless amounts of unused crackers customers had left on their plates. After discovering that the cost of one box of crackers is somewhere around $50.00, I broke it all down and did the math. Our restaurant was tossing out hundreds of dollars every year in crackers.
I couldn’t believe it.
If we were tossing out this much money for something like crackers, how much were we wasting by throwing away other, more expensive foods?
My search for the answer became a semester-long obsession. I broadened my search to include the whole of America. The data was disturbing. I felt like a pig wallowing in the mud. I tried to correct my own habits, which is when I realized just how difficult it is to not actually throw away things you don’t need.
Our problem is culturally bound, which means that a solution depends on the actions of the next generation. How do you sway the future? You teach the youth.
O V E R V I E W :
Eat Week was generated as a response to the American Food Waste Crisis. Every year, an estimated 40% of food grown, processed, and transported in the US will never be consumed. When food is disposed in a landfill it rots and becomes a significant source of methane - a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. More information about the problem can be found in the boards below.
Eat Week is an eating awareness program. The program is designed to reduce unnecessary food consumption (cradle to cradle). Following the program could help lead to significant degreases in food waste throughout the United States. Reducing the amount of food wasted will help create a cleaner, healthier world!
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The program attacks the problem at a grass-roots level by addressing poor eating habits. In other words, the program works by educating the next generation about the consequences of over- and under-consuming.
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Once every six months, Eat Week will sponsor the distribution of 10” plates and white table cloths to school cafeterias. For one week, these reusable items are to be used in place of regular, often oversized lunch room ware so that students might see that they can become full with smaller portions. Students should not be limited to the amount of times they can return to fill their plates.
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The program doesn’t end in the cafeteria. Schools are provided with a lecture plan for healthy-eating, including material on the history of our nation’s consumption habits, ways that eating can affect the human body, food production and distribution and its effect on our economy, healthy recipes, instructions on appropriate portion sizes, and companies and organizations that strive to reduce food waste.
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For a more detailed explanation of this curriculum model, please refer to:
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R E S U L T :
