I was talking to someone on the tube who worked in a large retail food store. Apparently once food has reached its sell by date it has to be binned. In fact in this store they feed it into a 'mincer'. This one store dumps tons of food every week (so I am told).

Staff are not allowed to take any home. Apparently it is for Health and Safety reasons. I am told that most of the food is perfectly good to eat, and given that many of the staff are on low wages, what would be wrong with eating 2 day old bread. If it is a bit tired they could toast it. It isn't going to kill them, is it?

Superquinn gives their bread at the end of the day to local charities which is a lot more sensible.

Considering the gap between the 'use by' and 'sell by' dates, it makes no sense that they'd wastefully mince the food that is still safe to eat.

Yes Superquinn are really good in that regard. I have been involved with taking food off their hands both with soup runs for homeless people and also when putting on events such as breakfasts after ecumenical sunrises services at Easter.

On an aside, I once found myself outside McDonalds in Stillorgan with some mates at gone midnight when I was about 18. As we had just missed closing time they gave us pretty much everything they had left in their restaurant to savage. Going by the amount they gave us I would imagine there is an awful lot of waste there.

There's a whole movement which began in the States called 'freganism' consisting of those who scour skips at good restaurants and delis for good food they throw out.

Aaaargh.

Regulations about food and sell by dates all came about because people died.

We are not even allowed to give stuff to the pigs any more because such bad things happened.

The only thing for it is much better control of ordering, defrosting and so on, or giving stuff away on the sell by date, and not the day after.

Squire wrote:

I was talking to someone on the tube who worked in a large retail food store. Apparently once food has reached its sell by date it has to be binned. In fact in this store they feed it into a 'mincer'. This one store dumps tons of food every week (so I am told).

Staff are not allowed to take any home. Apparently it is for Health and Safety reasons. I am told that most of the food is perfectly good to eat, and given that many of the staff are on low wages, what would be wrong with eating 2 day old bread. If it is a bit tired they could toast it. It isn't going to kill them, is it?

McDonalds are ridiculous for throwing out food but they're terrified that someone will sue. Anyone who works there will marvel at the quantity of it binned of an evening and will always ask the obvious question - can't it be given to the homeless, poor, needy etc. It will be eaten by the rats on the nearest landfill and if they could sue they would.

Fregans probably can't sue either thus aren't they doing a worthy job for someone somewhere...

Isn't it true that Fregans might get fairly decent food if they time it right? I'd imagine some restaurants even welcome them at the back door in the alley.

cactus flower wrote:

Aaaargh.

Regulations about food and sell by dates all came about because people died.

We are not even allowed to give stuff to the pigs any more because such bad things happened.

The only thing for it is much better control of ordering, defrosting and so on, or giving stuff away on the sell by date, and not the day after.

I agree it should be given away on the sell by date or at least let staff take some of it home.

The rest should go to pigs, with a bit of monitoring it would be fine. In China that was the traditional role of the pig. Better still in rural China they used the methane from excrement to cook. Very efficient especially if you also consider also keeping fish in rice fields.

I hate to see food wasted. Seen too many people who have had insufficient.

Squire wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Aaaargh.

Regulations about food and sell by dates all came about because people died.

We are not even allowed to give stuff to the pigs any more because such bad things happened.

The only thing for it is much better control of ordering, defrosting and so on, or giving stuff away on the sell by date, and not the day after.

I agree it should be given away on the sell by date or at least let staff take some of it home.

The rest should go to pigs, with a bit of monitoring it would be fine. In China that was the traditional role of the pig. Better still in rural China they used the methane from excrement to cook. Very efficient especially if you also consider also keeping fish in rice fields.

I hate to see food wasted. Seen too many people who have had insufficient.

Wasting sh1t is just as bad. The very idea of chucking it all into rivers. Methane, compost, making houses out of it (just add straw)...

A lot of companies leave their photocopiers and lights on during the night when nobody is in the office save for the security guard and maybe the cleaner.

This is a scandalous waste and if that was stopped, we'd save huge quantities of energy and companies would slice their electricity bills.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

A lot of companies leave their photocopiers and lights on during the night when nobody is in the office save for the security guard and maybe the cleaner.

This is a scandalous waste and if that was stopped, we'd save huge quantities of energy and companies would slice their electricity bills.

I've said that before - the amount of energy wasted on a daily basis in most modern economies would be quite sufficient to allow them to meet their Kyoto targets if stopped. You could simply fine people, you know....or, hm, how about a "name and shame" website? I can do the technology if people think it's worth doing - all you'd need is for people to write in (or text in) the names of companies who leave their lights on at night. With a public mood in favour of companies "doing their bit" that might have some effect - do we have that yet?

ibis wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

A lot of companies leave their photocopiers and lights on during the night when nobody is in the office save for the security guard and maybe the cleaner.

This is a scandalous waste and if that was stopped, we'd save huge quantities of energy and companies would slice their electricity bills.

I've said that before - the amount of energy wasted on a daily basis in most modern economies would be quite sufficient to allow them to meet their Kyoto targets if stopped. You could simply fine people, you know....or, hm, how about a "name and shame" website? I can do the technology if people think it's worth doing - all you'd need is for people to write in (or text in) the names of companies who leave their lights on at night. With a public mood in favour of companies "doing their bit" that might have some effect - do we have that yet?

Do you remember the recent "Earth hour" in which companies and government offices went and turned off "unneccessary lighting" and appliances for an hour. They then presumably went around and turned them on again.

I once worked in a local authority the County Secretary of which would dart into one's room and switch one's computer off, if one wasn't there, with unspeakable loss of work I don't think there are too many like him left.

Proper control of electricity and water use would be a way of cutting public expenditure, as well as emissions.

ibis wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

A lot of companies leave their photocopiers and lights on during the night when nobody is in the office save for the security guard and maybe the cleaner.

This is a scandalous waste and if that was stopped, we'd save huge quantities of energy and companies would slice their electricity bills.

I've said that before - the amount of energy wasted on a daily basis in most modern economies would be quite sufficient to allow them to meet their Kyoto targets if stopped. You could simply fine people, you know....or, hm, how about a "name and shame" website? I can do the technology if people think it's worth doing - all you'd need is for people to write in (or text in) the names of companies who leave their lights on at night. With a public mood in favour of companies "doing their bit" that might have some effect - do we have that yet?

Exactly, it's the business equivalent to leaving the tap running while brushing your teeth. It's a completely superfluous expense and when finance departments are scurrying around wringing savings from other areas, this seems an area of blatantly obvious economy.

Some more ways you can eliminate waste-

Use the stairs instead of the lift when possible - it saves energy for the lift and it keeps you fit.

Print double-sided as this saves massively on paper. You should also only photocopy the amount you require rather than create surplus copies.

Get rid of all your old incandescent bulbs and buy CFLs since they save enormous amounts of energy.

Have showers instead of baths, it's cleaner and less energy-intensive.

I can never understand dish washers. I mean what is wrong with a pair of hands?

Still on food buying what you don't need. We all do it to some extent.

Still think we should be harvesting rain water for flushing toilets, easy enough to do.

Hardcore, yes Squire is into hardcore, but only if it is up to the suitable standard. Now this causes all sorts of problems with waste. Say you demolish a house it would be very difficult to get an engineer to approve the bricks and concrete as being suitable for hardcore under roads of ground floors. So that material tends to head for the landfill site and we keep quarrying.

Squire wrote:

I can never understand dish washers. I mean what is wrong with a pair of hands?

I was under the impression that, when you do the calculations, putting a dishwasher on with a full load is more energy-efficient than handwashing the load in a sink.

**Ard-Taoiseach posted above

Squire wrote:

I can never understand dish washers. I mean what is wrong with a pair of hands?

Still on food buying what you don't need. We all do it to some extent.

Still think we should be harvesting rain water for flushing toilets, easy enough to do.

Hardcore, yes Squire is into hardcore, but only if it is up to the suitable standard. Now this causes all sorts of problems with waste. Say you demolish a house it would be very difficult to get an engineer to approve the bricks and concrete as being suitable for hardcore under roads of ground floors. So that material tends to head for the landfill site and we keep quarrying.

Now there'll come a time when everyone needs a bit of hardcore to fill a hole or two and could end up spending a fair whack of cash on something that someone else wants to get rid of and are prepared to pay to have removed. I'm thinking that an 'instant market' via mobile phone handset might be the thing - you have a bunch of books to sell/give away? No problem just do a quick search for "wants books" or simply add your lot to list of "books for the taking"; want or need some furniture? scan for "giving furniture away" and voilá, up it comes.

The Instant Market would work by GPS and people would work out their own arrangements as to where to transact business. I'm sure there are tons of sites like this already.

People have way too much these days and someone's rubbish is always another's gold.

Hands, in my experience belong to two-legged dishwashers of the variety that break down all the time and cause massive collateral damage in the kitchen.

I don't call my dishwasher 'the liberator' for nothing...

I wonder does the dishwasher/ sink argument correlate with the shower/bath one?

Re hardcore, a lot can be used in agricultural building for entranceways or laneways. But getting the permit would seem to be a bit of a hassle...

The entire 2 story building close to me in Clonshaugh was put through a huge concrete pulping machine in 2 weeks. It came out like gravel. Mad stuff. Loads of the pulp was reused on site for the newbuildings.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

The entire 2 story building close to me in Clonshaugh was put through a huge concrete pulping machine in 2 weeks. It came out like gravel. Mad stuff. Loads of the pulp was reused on site for the newbuildings.

Well that's good, it should reduce by some degree the level of emissions generated by that building project. Also, if more firms switched to using Ecocem rather than Quinn/Irish Cement, there'd be even more savings made.

Yeah, I meant to get more detail on that ecocem stuff. Is it true it's stronger too ?

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Yeah, I meant to get more detail on that ecocem stuff. Is it true it's stronger too ?

I think it is, I believe that they use a lot of recycled material in the production process and that is what reduces the impact compared to other providers. As another bonus, it's an Irish company, so we're supporting our own when we buy bags of cement and concrete from Ecocem.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

The entire 2 story building close to me in Clonshaugh was put through a huge concrete pulping machine in 2 weeks. It came out like gravel. Mad stuff. Loads of the pulp was reused on site for the newbuildings.

I'd love to see that. Is it a wasteful machine energy-wise though? Busting concrete is something that can be done by hand anyway if needs be but it must be an efficient enough process compared with the various impacts of quarrying.

Besides that, there is something very pleasing about simply getting use out of old stuff - it's like giving it a second life.

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

The entire 2 story building close to me in Clonshaugh was put through a huge concrete pulping machine in 2 weeks. It came out like gravel. Mad stuff. Loads of the pulp was reused on site for the newbuildings.

I'd love to see that. Is it a wasteful machine energy-wise though? Busting concrete is something that can be done by hand anyway if needs be but it must be an efficient enough process compared with the various impacts of quarrying.

Do any of you ever watch Mythbusters? It's an excellent programme on Discovery and you're just after reminding me of one show where they exploded a mixer truck packed with concrete. It was amazing.

Great thread!

cactus flower wrote:

We are not even allowed to give stuff to the pigs any more

That's a pity.
I used to work in a busy roadside restaurant about 15 years ago and we'd give the leftovers to a pig farmer.

I imagine it is (technically) possible to mix waste meat with waste sewerage and extract methane?

evm wrote:

The entire 2 story building close
to me in Clonshaugh was put through a huge concrete pulping machine in
2 weeks. It came out like gravel. Mad stuff. Loads of the pulp was
reused on site for the new buildings.

I think the Germans have a law that when a building is demolished all the material must be kept (and reused) on site.
World leaders at recycling, the Germans.

I heard before that some lad from Northern Ireland made his fortune selling machines in Germany which smash concrete. Had a plant in Kilbeggan for a while? Can't remember his name.

Kate P wrote:

I don't call my dishwasher 'the liberator' for nothing...

I love the dishwasher. Fantastic invention.
I think it uses a lot less water than hand washing but more electricity. So in terms of environmental impact, it depends on one's priorities.