April 15, 2025 • 30 mins
Community DC Host Dennis Glasgow speaks with two great guests from the Department of Environmental Protection of Montgomery County – Eileen Kao – who is the Chief of the Waste Reduction and Recycling Section and Kathy Vazquez – Commercial Food Scraps Recycling Manager…
We’ll be talking about a huge initiative that is already underway with pilot programs on Montgomery county and that’s they reduce reuse recycle right! Campaign – leading up to Earth Day this Tuesday and educating everyone that reducing and recycling their food waste is the way to go!
We’ll be talking about a huge initiative that is already underway with pilot programs on Montgomery county and that’s they reduce reuse recycle right! Campaign – leading up to Earth Day this Tuesday and educating everyone that reducing and recycling their food waste is the way to go!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, and welcome to another edition of Community DC.
I'm your host Dennis Glasgow. This morning, we get a
chance to speak with two great guests from the Department
of Environmental Protection of Montgomery County, Eileen cam who is
the chief of Waste Reduction and Recycling Section, and Kathy Vasquez,
commercial Food Scraps Recycling Manager. We'll be talking about a
huge initiative that is already underway with pilot programs in
(00:21):
Montgomery County, and that's Reduced Reuse, Recycle RITE campaign leading
up to Earth Day this Tuesday, and educating everyone they're
reducing and recycling their food waste is the way to go.
It's a great education for everyone, and we get a
chance to talk about some of the very progressive ways
Montgomery County is working to get better in regard to
food waste and how to recycle even better. Here's my
conversation with Eileen and Kathy. I hope you enjoy the
(00:43):
conversation as much as I did. Good morning, Eileen and Kathy.
How are you guys doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Great? Good morning, Dennis, Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well Aileen, we got you back, but we got a
newbie on here with Kathy, So I'm thrilled, and of
course we're here to talk about Food is Too Good
to Waste And Eileen, I had such an educational interview
with you a few months back about what you do.
But this is a new campaign and we're going to
talk to both you and Kathy about how exciting this is.
And you know, I think that people kind of take
this thing for granted, but I've heard some statistics I've
(01:12):
been on the website lately, and it really is I
don't know if appalling is the word when people buy
food how much they actually waste out there. We're going
to find those stats out as we talk to both
of you, But can you give us an overall view
of this campaign, about the idea about how it started.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
First, Well, this is a really exciting campaign food is
Too Good to Waste, and it's such a true statement.
You know. One of the things that we do in
our work, we're kind of funny. We like to literally
dive into the trash and see what is in the
(01:47):
trash and what we know from doing this, and we
do this on a periodic basis every few years. We
know that there is a significant amount of food that
ends up in the trash here in Montgomery County, and
(02:07):
it's really a shame. It's it's you know, just our tagline.
You know, food really is too good to waste, you know.
We we've been working for some time to try to
reduce the amount of wasted food that occurs here in
Montgomery County. We've also separately been but interrelated, we've been
(02:32):
looking for more and more ways to help people also
recycle the food scraps that are no longer edible. But
really this is all about getting back to basics. As
you said, I think people do sort of take for
granted food and I think it's eye opening when we
(02:54):
point out that actually we found in the waste actually
ninety seven thousand tons wow of food, Yeah, of food
materials in the trash. Now, some of that is was
(03:14):
edible before it went into the trash, and for that portion,
we want to make sure that that gets channeled, rescued
if you will, and it ends up being donated or
given to food assistance provider organizations that then can distribute
that food, that edible good food to our community members
(03:39):
that really still are living with food insecurity and have
unmet needs still. But even before that, we want people
to focus on the basics, how do we reduce the
amount of wasted food to begin with? And it's really
getting back to basics, you know, things like menu planning,
(04:03):
thinking it through, putting together a list when you go
shop for groceries, making sure that you put it away
and you store it in the best way so that
it has the longest life possible. But you know, really
paying attention and using the food and the ingredients that
(04:25):
you purchase. Enjoy it, prepare it, prepare it in good ways,
but then eat it, enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
But if you do.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Have remaining food, if you do have leftovers, store it,
store it well, label it, you know, all these types
of things so that you can continue to enjoy that food.
So yeah, so this is a really exciting educational effort.
We're just trying to to raise people's awareness about the
(05:00):
the issue of food and trying to cut down on
the amount that's wasted.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Well well said Eileen and Kathy, something that Eileen and
I talked about last time we visited. Also working with restaurants,
and I know we're trying to basically educate the general public.
And I think we can all agree that knowledge is power,
and what a lot of Eileen is saying, Kathy is
you know, common sense, but still I think having to
get this message across is really important. But there is
(05:26):
an inherent difference between a resident and maybe a family
like me in Northwest DC with my wife and what
I buy and what I waste as opposed to maybe
a restaurant that's in Montgomery County. So we want to
make sure that we're educating everybody out there as you
you know, kind of put this plan together and the
at you education process, tell me what you're planning on
doing just to get the word out there.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Yeah, so I'm glad that you talked about the different
kind of sectors that we're targeting. Could we do target
people in single family homes, people in multi family apartments
and the commercial sector and all of those different sectors
you know, have the responsibility to kind of reduce food
waste and make sure that they are using all of
(06:09):
the components of the food that they're purchasing in the
best way to make sure everything gets used. As part
of this campaign, you know, this is a multi strategy
or like a broad based media campaign paign. So we'll
have we're doing ads, We're doing whether that's on.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
The radio, we have videos.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Additionally, we'll be putting it on buses and some of
the bus kiosks and some of the metro stations as
well to kind of reach as many and target as
many people about the specific campaign. In terms of what
we do on a day to day basis, that's kind
of the conversations that we have daily when we are
(06:51):
out tabling or when we're communicating to commercial businesses. You know,
we really want folks, whether that's a business or whether
that's a resident, to think about, you know, what's happening
at their home or at their site. Commercial businesses are
really great at, you know, analyzing kind of what they're
making because you know, it's about saving as much money
(07:14):
as possible at the business end, and so making sure
that everyone is aware of kind of the ways that
you can save money by reducing food waste is really
the one of the big goals of this campaign, and
making sure people are eating everything that they are purchasing
(07:34):
so that way, you know, we can lower the amount
of food waste that's in our in our waste stream.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, and Eileen, do you want to expound on that.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, I just wanted to mention also that we have
been working with some very very aware, very in tune
chefs in the area, commercial chefs who they also really
want to make sure that the wonderful meals that they
(08:04):
prepare are really done in a very environmentally sensitive way,
and so they've shared with us and they've helped us
to create videos and different education pieces on how chefs
and folks preparing food can actually do those meal planning
(08:30):
processes in a great way and also take the meal
planning to another level where what they may have leftover
they can also use to plan out and prepare additional meals.
You know, for example, when they're preparing foods and if
(08:52):
they have some leftover vegetables and you know, different ingredients,
they can then create aditional making soups and different dishes
out of those kind of leftover or remaining items. And
so it really is a matter of utilizing in the
(09:12):
best way possible all the ingredients and the foodstock that
they have so that that again eliminates waste, reduces food waste.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
You know. Sidebar story for both of you. I've lost
a tremendous amount of weight in this last year and
I've gotten healthy again. And this is no knock against
any restaurant that I've ever been out, because my wife
and I frequent a lot of restaurants, whether it's Montgomery
County or we're in DC where we live Northwest DC.
But the appalling amount of food that you get when
you go out and need sometimes and then I think
(09:46):
about that as being wasted because now that I'm dieting
and I don't eat as much as I do, like
a lot of people out there, all that food being wasted,
and you think about that as a consumer too sometimes.
And I imagine those conversations happen with restaurants because I
understand I don't run a restaurant, so I'm a layman,
but I imagine you have to have enough food, you
don't know how many people are going to come in
that day, and then you were I guess about the waste.
(10:07):
That's always probably a debate. I'm glad you got chefs
involved because that makes a lot of sense because there
are boots on the ground, they know what they're doing.
But still, as a restaurant and as a small business,
I imagine you had to have so much food ready
to go, and then you don't know what kind of
clientele and customers are coming in that day and that
gets in that dilemma of waste. I imagine those are
ongoing the conversations, right, Kathy, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Those are definitely ongoing conversations. And we you know, we
do work with businesses that are really aware of portion
control and portion sizing. I work with one that is
currently offering half meals.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
There, you know, there are cafeteria they serve there in
a senior living facility.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
They realize that sometimes.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
The full portion maybe too much for some of those
folks that are living there, and so based on some
of the data that we were able to provide to them,
they are all so now offering half meals because they
realize that they are either purchasing too much or providing
too much for their clients that are at the establishment.
So that also helps reduce food waste by just looking
(11:12):
at kind of what your operation is and you know,
making some simple modifications to reduce your food waste and
then also appease your clientele because you know, people are
going through the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
They don't want to waste food. You know, they bought it,
you know, they don't want to bring it home.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
But sometimes you know, you always forget that you have
that random food food container in the back of your
refrigerator and you did it never got to it.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, you're right about that. By the way, you both
be happy. And I can't remember if I told Eileen
this last time, but about maybe I don't know, a
couple of years ago and it was just an ad
serve to me. But we recycle at home and we're
pretty good about the environment, my wife and I that
live in DC. And this is no endorsement to the product,
but we bought a loam me and I think you
both known what that is. But basically it's a food
(11:57):
recycler and what educated me and it surprised me, is
that when we started using it, I realized how much
food that we didn't eat in the house and that
we were throwing away in the trash beforehand because we
didn't have it. And for the people don't know what
ALONEI is. And once again, this is just a brand
name and it's not an endorsement. It's basically can grind
down your food and then you can use it for
(12:19):
your plants, whether it's indoors or outdoors, and it really
is environmentally sound. It's cool, it works, really well, I
was stunned. It's very inexpensive, but once again it got
me I need to educate myself on how I can
help the family and also help the environment a little bit.
And I imagine this is all part of the process
as we educate people to do things like that. If
you do have leftover food.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely so. You know, in addition to trying
to help people reduce the amount of food that they waste,
we are working quite concernedly to increase all all the
different opportunities that our residents, our multifamily properties, and our
(13:06):
businesses in Montgomery County have to then be able to
recycle their food scraps, the food that can no longer
be eaten, the cuttings, the sort of the things that
are associated with food that cannot be eaten, all of
(13:28):
those things. We are really trying to create different programs,
different initiatives so that everyone can separate their food scraps
and recycle them. And it's kind of a network, if
you will, of different programs because one thing that we
have learned from decades ago about recycling is one size
(13:51):
does not fit all, one program doesn't fit everybody's needs.
So we kind of are operating all pistons, hiring all
at one time. And you know, for example, for our
single family residents, we have three different smaller areas of
(14:13):
the county where we have tested and evaluated curbside collection
of food scraps from the single family homes and town
homes in those areas. We have one in Silver Spring,
we have one in Potomac, and then we have one
that's an area that we refer to as Rockville kind
(14:35):
of Rockville Bethesda, and it's been amazing. What we're doing
is we are providing all the homes in these three
particular areas, and we have up to eight hundred and
fifty single family homes participating in each of the three areas.
We are providing them with a kitchen caddie so that
(14:57):
it's easy for them to place their food scraps as
they create them or generate them into this container in
the kitchen, and then they will move that material to
a wheeled cart that we've provided to them, and then
on a weekly basis, on the same day as we
(15:18):
collect all their other recyclables, we ask them to wheel
this food scrap's cart to the curb and then we
actually have a contractor a food scraps recycling collector going
through and picking up those food scraps for recycling, and
we are actually capturing a lot of good data and information.
(15:40):
We actually look at the houses and see how often
they participate, how often they put their food scraps out
for recycling. We also take a look at how much generally,
how much food scraps they put out, is it a
half cart three quarters cart full? And then of course
when the truck goes through the gates of the facility,
(16:01):
the recycling or composting facility to which all of the
food scraps are delivered, we get the weight of the
entire load. So that's giving us great data. But in addition,
we're getting feedback. We're soliciting feedback from our participants in
the pilot projects, and overwhelmingly we know that the participants
(16:25):
really like and benefit from this service. Now, we want
to be able to provide this to all of our
single family homes ultimately in Montgomery County. So simultaneous to that,
we are trying to establish our own facility processing capability
(16:46):
so that we can bring in that food scrap's material
that we collect from all the single family homes and
we can compost that material and make it into a
brand new product. And it's a product just like you're saying,
which it's very nutrient rich. It's a great soil amendment,
and people can then use that on their flower beds
(17:10):
in their gardens, use that great material.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate you sharing that, Eileen
and Kathy. This kind of reminds me of when I
was living with my family in Portland, Oregon in the
mid mid early aughts and they did a pilot program
back there in Portland for recycling. And it's hard to
believe that, you know, this is only about you know
a little bit over twenty years ago that we weren't
recycling regularly, but the country wasn't as you you guys
(17:34):
are in the business, so you know, but I remember
doing it and going, well, this is interesting. And while
it was another step for us, I think I started
to enjoy the process that I was recycling, I was
helping the environment and things like that. And I think
Kathy to Island's point, it's just about educating people and
getting them into the habit of doing this and realizing
(17:54):
they're really doing some good work. So once again, back
to the education, right, Kathy, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
They back to the education.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
And I think probably something that you probably realized when
you started recycling was how small your trash can is
or how small the waste is well.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
And by the way, to this day too, I have
so much recycling, but I have such little trash. It
really is amazing, you're right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
And so you know that's the real motive for us
as well, is.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
To minimize the amount of stuff that's going into.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Our waste stream.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
And with food scraps and food waste, it's the heaviest
portion of our waste stream because it's a lot of
juicy material.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
That contributes to a lot of the weights.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
So if we can get people to nominally reduce their
food waste but actually you know, participate in some of
the programs that we are providing to recycle it, you know,
we will definitely be able to reduce our trash. And
then also, you know, the county has a really big
goal of aiming for zero waste. We have to get
to that goal, and you know, food scraps is the
(18:57):
weight that we get there.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And just for the record, it's all my Amazon deliveries
that I get all the time that they're my recycling.
I don't know of anybody else out there, but my gosh,
it is endless of boxes and boxes, but we are recycling,
which I'm always happy to do. So, Arlene, I wanted
to talk to you about with this pilot program and
what you're hoping to do. How many people are involved
right now? And is it only residents or are you
(19:19):
also working with businesses on a pilot program with them?
How is that working in? How many people are we
looking at? And then what's going to be your goal
as you look down down the road a little bit?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Thanks, So, as I mentioned for right now, in our
pilots have we are only able to have a maximum
of eight hundred and fifty single family homes in each
of these three areas, right, and so we continuously try
and recruit and get more and more of the eligible
(19:55):
residence to sign up for this service.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
But again, our.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Goal is one day we're going to be providing that
county wide to all of our single family residences. But
in the meantime, because we know what we know about recycling,
is the more convenient we make it for people to recycle,
the more as we educate and spread the good word,
(20:22):
the more they will participate and actually recycle their different materials.
So in the meantime, we have a really great additional
initiative where we have established recycling drop off locations for people,
single family residents, multi family residents to bring their food
(20:42):
scraps to us and we will then they drop the
materials off with us, and then we truck that material
again to a composting facility where it's turned into another
great new product. So currently we have four locations spread
around the county and we are actually we're continuing to
(21:06):
look and see if we can add more locations, and
we happen to have selected farmers existing farmers' market locations.
We have one in Bethesda, we have one in Silver Spring,
we have one in Drwood, and we have one in Only.
Currently they operate on the weekends and so hopefully, you know,
(21:31):
were convenient to the folks that are living in those
areas and goodness, you know, Dennis, about eight thousand participants
have come through these four locations bringing their food scraps
to us for recycling, and so far we've been able
(21:52):
to recycle over twenty eight tons of materials that folks
that brought to us. Yeah, so it's great. It's really great.
And again that's just something that we put in place
because we do want to make it as convenient as
we can for folks. But also to your point, and
(22:13):
I want, I want to give some time for Kathy
to go through. We also have other two other initiatives
real quickly, I'll touch on multi family and then I'm
going to ask Kathy to go into detail about commercial.
But with our apartment and condominium properties, we are also
working with the different multi family properties and for those
(22:36):
that are pretty progressive and are interested in trying to
set up food scraps recycling programs for all of their residents,
we are working one on one and providing tailor assistants
to each property that's interested and helping them to set
up establish food scraps recycling programs for their residents. And
(23:00):
you know, so far we've had a lot of success
with certain properties and we continue to want more properties
to So if anyone is out there living in an
apartment or condominium or managing a property and is interested,
let us know because we are also very interested in helping.
But Kathy is the manager of an award winning, nationally
(23:26):
recognized program, our commercial food Scraps Recycling Partnership Program and
I'll let Kathy talk a lot more about the details.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Yeah, Kathy, yeah, yeah, And so thanks Eileen for that.
So with the Commercial Foodscraps Recycling Partnership Program, what we
aim to do it's kind of a training withal program.
We want to provide participants with as much handholding as
possible because adding food scraps recycling to your existing operations
(23:56):
can feel really scary.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
So what we do is we.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Work with people who are commercial businesses who are interested
in recycling, and we provide them with all of the education,
all of the educational materials, so you get posters and
you get collection containers, and then additionally we also help
with getting the collection and transporting as the costs associated
(24:22):
with that as well. So we have a truck, we
come out and we pick up the materials and we
provide the service for a limited time to get these
commercial businesses in a good place so they feel confident
in recycling their materials, and then we provide them with
the information. So every time our truck goes out there
to pick up one of these trash cans that has
(24:44):
foods craps in it, we weigh every single can, and
so we can give them that data so they can
either use that data to gradu when they graduate from
the program, they can use that data to hire a
collector or hauler and write size their their waste contract. Additionally,
one of the things that they've used that data for
(25:05):
as well is looking at how do you communicate with
some of the clients that are coming to the restaurant,
because they want to make sure that they are, you know,
eating all the food that they're providing. So they're trying
to tackle food wastes from both ends, from the back
end from the kitchen, in from the scraps that are
being produced, and then from anything that is potentially coming
(25:26):
off people's plates and making sure people are you know,
that their portion sizes are right, and making sure people
are getting what they particularly potentially need while they're eating.
The other program that we have on top of the
commercial program is another program for residents as well. So
similar to you, Dennis, we have some residents in the
county who are really gung ho about recycling their food scraps.
(25:50):
So we do provide kind of training, information and workshops
to get people who want to recycle their fruits and
vegetable food scraps in their backyard. We give them the
best manager practices, We provide them with webinars so that
way people can actually start recycling fruits and vegetable food
waste in their backyard and you know, start reducing the
(26:12):
amount of food scraps that they're generating on site, and
then also make really great soil amendments some composts that
they can use for their vegetable gardens and for their
perennial plants as well.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah, and it works, Anileen, I was just going to
mention that that is a great program, the backyard composting
education we provide and training we provide for our residents
to be able to backyard compost, including with their food scraps.
But one thing, just to be cautious about our training
(26:44):
and our support of these efforts, It really is also
based on the residents using particular compost bins that are
rodent to proof, because we just really want to make sure.
You know, critters are very smart and they're very motivated,
(27:06):
and if they sense or smell that there is food available,
they will go after it. And so what we want
to make sure is that we educate our residents and
work with our residents to compost, including with food straps,
but do it in a way where it's not going
(27:27):
to attract critters. It's not going to create owners, it's
not going to become a new sense that quickly goes
beyond that one residence yard and impacts you know, neighbors
in a neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Right right, So I only have a couple of minutes left,
So Kathy, I'm going to have you do this. I
want you to give the website to everybody and talk
about some details and recap everything, and then I'll come
back to you and we'll kind of wrap things up.
But Kathy, the website fantastic. It's very educational. It's easy
to navigate. What's the website for everybody that they can check.
Got a little bit more about food is Too Good
(28:01):
to Waste?
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (28:03):
So the website is Montgomery County, MD dot gov, forward
Slash Reduced Food Waste and so it on there. It
has all of our videos and also a lot of
our education and brochures as well. You can reach out
to us and we can send you those brochures to
your house if you want to as too, so that
you can get a paper copy, but all of all
of the materials are available digitally on Montgurmy County, MD
(28:25):
dot gov.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Forward Slash Reduced Food Waste.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Standing and IAN. Even though this is kind of coinciding
with Earth Day that's coming up, we want people to
start this regularly, right, We're just kind of giving them
a kind of a benchmark day that everybody celebrates. But
we you know, I think you've got the ball really
rolling great here, don't you.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Oh yeah, absolutely, We want people to do this every
single day, And to us, every day is Earth Day. Yeah,
there might be one specific designation, but to us, it's
it's every single day that everyone can do their part
(29:04):
to reduce waste to begin with, and to then also
recycle everything that they can recycle. And that's just something
that we want to instill great habits and people. We
want people to understand why it's so important, but we
(29:26):
just really want everybody to do this as much as possible.
Working together, we are going to be able to make
great progress and reach our goal of zero waste. Reduce
waste to begin with, reuse everything that can be reused
over and over again, and then you know, at the
(29:47):
end of utilizing materials, recycle everything that can be recycled.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Outstanding, well said Eileen Cathy, Thank you so much for
joining us on Community DC. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Thanks Jannis
Good morning, and welcome to another edition of Community DC.
I'm your host Dennis Glasgow. This morning, we get a
chance to speak with two great guests from the Department
of Environmental Protection of Montgomery County, Eileen cam who is
the chief of Waste Reduction and Recycling Section, and Kathy Vasquez,
commercial Food Scraps Recycling Manager. We'll be talking about a
huge initiative that is already underway with pilot programs in
(00:21):
Montgomery County, and that's Reduced Reuse, Recycle RITE campaign leading
up to Earth Day this Tuesday, and educating everyone they're
reducing and recycling their food waste is the way to go.
It's a great education for everyone, and we get a
chance to talk about some of the very progressive ways
Montgomery County is working to get better in regard to
food waste and how to recycle even better. Here's my
conversation with Eileen and Kathy. I hope you enjoy the
(00:43):
conversation as much as I did. Good morning, Eileen and Kathy.
How are you guys doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Great? Good morning, Dennis, Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well Aileen, we got you back, but we got a
newbie on here with Kathy, So I'm thrilled, and of
course we're here to talk about Food is Too Good
to Waste And Eileen, I had such an educational interview
with you a few months back about what you do.
But this is a new campaign and we're going to
talk to both you and Kathy about how exciting this is.
And you know, I think that people kind of take
this thing for granted, but I've heard some statistics I've
(01:12):
been on the website lately, and it really is I
don't know if appalling is the word when people buy
food how much they actually waste out there. We're going
to find those stats out as we talk to both
of you, But can you give us an overall view
of this campaign, about the idea about how it started.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
First, Well, this is a really exciting campaign food is
Too Good to Waste, and it's such a true statement.
You know. One of the things that we do in
our work, we're kind of funny. We like to literally
dive into the trash and see what is in the
(01:47):
trash and what we know from doing this, and we
do this on a periodic basis every few years. We
know that there is a significant amount of food that
ends up in the trash here in Montgomery County, and
(02:07):
it's really a shame. It's it's you know, just our tagline.
You know, food really is too good to waste, you know.
We we've been working for some time to try to
reduce the amount of wasted food that occurs here in
Montgomery County. We've also separately been but interrelated, we've been
(02:32):
looking for more and more ways to help people also
recycle the food scraps that are no longer edible. But
really this is all about getting back to basics. As
you said, I think people do sort of take for
granted food and I think it's eye opening when we
(02:54):
point out that actually we found in the waste actually
ninety seven thousand tons wow of food, Yeah, of food
materials in the trash. Now, some of that is was
(03:14):
edible before it went into the trash, and for that portion,
we want to make sure that that gets channeled, rescued
if you will, and it ends up being donated or
given to food assistance provider organizations that then can distribute
that food, that edible good food to our community members
(03:39):
that really still are living with food insecurity and have
unmet needs still. But even before that, we want people
to focus on the basics, how do we reduce the
amount of wasted food to begin with? And it's really
getting back to basics, you know, things like menu planning,
(04:03):
thinking it through, putting together a list when you go
shop for groceries, making sure that you put it away
and you store it in the best way so that
it has the longest life possible. But you know, really
paying attention and using the food and the ingredients that
(04:25):
you purchase. Enjoy it, prepare it, prepare it in good ways,
but then eat it, enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
But if you do.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Have remaining food, if you do have leftovers, store it,
store it well, label it, you know, all these types
of things so that you can continue to enjoy that food.
So yeah, so this is a really exciting educational effort.
We're just trying to to raise people's awareness about the
(05:00):
the issue of food and trying to cut down on
the amount that's wasted.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Well well said Eileen and Kathy, something that Eileen and
I talked about last time we visited. Also working with restaurants,
and I know we're trying to basically educate the general public.
And I think we can all agree that knowledge is power,
and what a lot of Eileen is saying, Kathy is
you know, common sense, but still I think having to
get this message across is really important. But there is
(05:26):
an inherent difference between a resident and maybe a family
like me in Northwest DC with my wife and what
I buy and what I waste as opposed to maybe
a restaurant that's in Montgomery County. So we want to
make sure that we're educating everybody out there as you
you know, kind of put this plan together and the
at you education process, tell me what you're planning on
doing just to get the word out there.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Yeah, so I'm glad that you talked about the different
kind of sectors that we're targeting. Could we do target
people in single family homes, people in multi family apartments
and the commercial sector and all of those different sectors
you know, have the responsibility to kind of reduce food
waste and make sure that they are using all of
(06:09):
the components of the food that they're purchasing in the
best way to make sure everything gets used. As part
of this campaign, you know, this is a multi strategy
or like a broad based media campaign paign. So we'll
have we're doing ads, We're doing whether that's on.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
The radio, we have videos.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Additionally, we'll be putting it on buses and some of
the bus kiosks and some of the metro stations as
well to kind of reach as many and target as
many people about the specific campaign. In terms of what
we do on a day to day basis, that's kind
of the conversations that we have daily when we are
(06:51):
out tabling or when we're communicating to commercial businesses. You know,
we really want folks, whether that's a business or whether
that's a resident, to think about, you know, what's happening
at their home or at their site. Commercial businesses are
really great at, you know, analyzing kind of what they're
making because you know, it's about saving as much money
(07:14):
as possible at the business end, and so making sure
that everyone is aware of kind of the ways that
you can save money by reducing food waste is really
the one of the big goals of this campaign, and
making sure people are eating everything that they are purchasing
(07:34):
so that way, you know, we can lower the amount
of food waste that's in our in our waste stream.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, and Eileen, do you want to expound on that.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, I just wanted to mention also that we have
been working with some very very aware, very in tune
chefs in the area, commercial chefs who they also really
want to make sure that the wonderful meals that they
(08:04):
prepare are really done in a very environmentally sensitive way,
and so they've shared with us and they've helped us
to create videos and different education pieces on how chefs
and folks preparing food can actually do those meal planning
(08:30):
processes in a great way and also take the meal
planning to another level where what they may have leftover
they can also use to plan out and prepare additional meals.
You know, for example, when they're preparing foods and if
(08:52):
they have some leftover vegetables and you know, different ingredients,
they can then create aditional making soups and different dishes
out of those kind of leftover or remaining items. And
so it really is a matter of utilizing in the
(09:12):
best way possible all the ingredients and the foodstock that
they have so that that again eliminates waste, reduces food waste.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
You know. Sidebar story for both of you. I've lost
a tremendous amount of weight in this last year and
I've gotten healthy again. And this is no knock against
any restaurant that I've ever been out, because my wife
and I frequent a lot of restaurants, whether it's Montgomery
County or we're in DC where we live Northwest DC.
But the appalling amount of food that you get when
you go out and need sometimes and then I think
(09:46):
about that as being wasted because now that I'm dieting
and I don't eat as much as I do, like
a lot of people out there, all that food being wasted,
and you think about that as a consumer too sometimes.
And I imagine those conversations happen with restaurants because I
understand I don't run a restaurant, so I'm a layman,
but I imagine you have to have enough food, you
don't know how many people are going to come in
that day, and then you were I guess about the waste.
(10:07):
That's always probably a debate. I'm glad you got chefs
involved because that makes a lot of sense because there
are boots on the ground, they know what they're doing.
But still, as a restaurant and as a small business,
I imagine you had to have so much food ready
to go, and then you don't know what kind of
clientele and customers are coming in that day and that
gets in that dilemma of waste. I imagine those are
ongoing the conversations, right, Kathy, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Those are definitely ongoing conversations. And we you know, we
do work with businesses that are really aware of portion
control and portion sizing. I work with one that is
currently offering half meals.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
There, you know, there are cafeteria they serve there in
a senior living facility.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
They realize that sometimes.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
The full portion maybe too much for some of those
folks that are living there, and so based on some
of the data that we were able to provide to them,
they are all so now offering half meals because they
realize that they are either purchasing too much or providing
too much for their clients that are at the establishment.
So that also helps reduce food waste by just looking
(11:12):
at kind of what your operation is and you know,
making some simple modifications to reduce your food waste and
then also appease your clientele because you know, people are
going through the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
They don't want to waste food. You know, they bought it,
you know, they don't want to bring it home.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
But sometimes you know, you always forget that you have
that random food food container in the back of your
refrigerator and you did it never got to it.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, you're right about that. By the way, you both
be happy. And I can't remember if I told Eileen
this last time, but about maybe I don't know, a
couple of years ago and it was just an ad
serve to me. But we recycle at home and we're
pretty good about the environment, my wife and I that
live in DC. And this is no endorsement to the product,
but we bought a loam me and I think you
both known what that is. But basically it's a food
(11:57):
recycler and what educated me and it surprised me, is
that when we started using it, I realized how much
food that we didn't eat in the house and that
we were throwing away in the trash beforehand because we
didn't have it. And for the people don't know what
ALONEI is. And once again, this is just a brand
name and it's not an endorsement. It's basically can grind
down your food and then you can use it for
(12:19):
your plants, whether it's indoors or outdoors, and it really
is environmentally sound. It's cool, it works, really well, I
was stunned. It's very inexpensive, but once again it got
me I need to educate myself on how I can
help the family and also help the environment a little bit.
And I imagine this is all part of the process
as we educate people to do things like that. If
you do have leftover food.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely so. You know, in addition to trying
to help people reduce the amount of food that they waste,
we are working quite concernedly to increase all all the
different opportunities that our residents, our multifamily properties, and our
(13:06):
businesses in Montgomery County have to then be able to
recycle their food scraps, the food that can no longer
be eaten, the cuttings, the sort of the things that
are associated with food that cannot be eaten, all of
(13:28):
those things. We are really trying to create different programs,
different initiatives so that everyone can separate their food scraps
and recycle them. And it's kind of a network, if
you will, of different programs because one thing that we
have learned from decades ago about recycling is one size
(13:51):
does not fit all, one program doesn't fit everybody's needs.
So we kind of are operating all pistons, hiring all
at one time. And you know, for example, for our
single family residents, we have three different smaller areas of
(14:13):
the county where we have tested and evaluated curbside collection
of food scraps from the single family homes and town
homes in those areas. We have one in Silver Spring,
we have one in Potomac, and then we have one
that's an area that we refer to as Rockville kind
(14:35):
of Rockville Bethesda, and it's been amazing. What we're doing
is we are providing all the homes in these three
particular areas, and we have up to eight hundred and
fifty single family homes participating in each of the three areas.
We are providing them with a kitchen caddie so that
(14:57):
it's easy for them to place their food scraps as
they create them or generate them into this container in
the kitchen, and then they will move that material to
a wheeled cart that we've provided to them, and then
on a weekly basis, on the same day as we
(15:18):
collect all their other recyclables, we ask them to wheel
this food scrap's cart to the curb and then we
actually have a contractor a food scraps recycling collector going
through and picking up those food scraps for recycling, and
we are actually capturing a lot of good data and information.
(15:40):
We actually look at the houses and see how often
they participate, how often they put their food scraps out
for recycling. We also take a look at how much generally,
how much food scraps they put out, is it a
half cart three quarters cart full? And then of course
when the truck goes through the gates of the facility,
(16:01):
the recycling or composting facility to which all of the
food scraps are delivered, we get the weight of the
entire load. So that's giving us great data. But in addition,
we're getting feedback. We're soliciting feedback from our participants in
the pilot projects, and overwhelmingly we know that the participants
(16:25):
really like and benefit from this service. Now, we want
to be able to provide this to all of our
single family homes ultimately in Montgomery County. So simultaneous to that,
we are trying to establish our own facility processing capability
(16:46):
so that we can bring in that food scrap's material
that we collect from all the single family homes and
we can compost that material and make it into a
brand new product. And it's a product just like you're saying,
which it's very nutrient rich. It's a great soil amendment,
and people can then use that on their flower beds
(17:10):
in their gardens, use that great material.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate you sharing that, Eileen
and Kathy. This kind of reminds me of when I
was living with my family in Portland, Oregon in the
mid mid early aughts and they did a pilot program
back there in Portland for recycling. And it's hard to
believe that, you know, this is only about you know
a little bit over twenty years ago that we weren't
recycling regularly, but the country wasn't as you you guys
(17:34):
are in the business, so you know, but I remember
doing it and going, well, this is interesting. And while
it was another step for us, I think I started
to enjoy the process that I was recycling, I was
helping the environment and things like that. And I think
Kathy to Island's point, it's just about educating people and
getting them into the habit of doing this and realizing
(17:54):
they're really doing some good work. So once again, back
to the education, right, Kathy, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
They back to the education.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
And I think probably something that you probably realized when
you started recycling was how small your trash can is
or how small the waste is well.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
And by the way, to this day too, I have
so much recycling, but I have such little trash. It
really is amazing, you're right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
And so you know that's the real motive for us
as well, is.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
To minimize the amount of stuff that's going into.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Our waste stream.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
And with food scraps and food waste, it's the heaviest
portion of our waste stream because it's a lot of
juicy material.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
That contributes to a lot of the weights.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
So if we can get people to nominally reduce their
food waste but actually you know, participate in some of
the programs that we are providing to recycle it, you know,
we will definitely be able to reduce our trash. And
then also, you know, the county has a really big
goal of aiming for zero waste. We have to get
to that goal, and you know, food scraps is the
(18:57):
weight that we get there.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And just for the record, it's all my Amazon deliveries
that I get all the time that they're my recycling.
I don't know of anybody else out there, but my gosh,
it is endless of boxes and boxes, but we are recycling,
which I'm always happy to do. So, Arlene, I wanted
to talk to you about with this pilot program and
what you're hoping to do. How many people are involved
right now? And is it only residents or are you
(19:19):
also working with businesses on a pilot program with them?
How is that working in? How many people are we
looking at? And then what's going to be your goal
as you look down down the road a little bit?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Thanks, So, as I mentioned for right now, in our
pilots have we are only able to have a maximum
of eight hundred and fifty single family homes in each
of these three areas, right, and so we continuously try
and recruit and get more and more of the eligible
(19:55):
residence to sign up for this service.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
But again, our.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Goal is one day we're going to be providing that
county wide to all of our single family residences. But
in the meantime, because we know what we know about recycling,
is the more convenient we make it for people to recycle,
the more as we educate and spread the good word,
(20:22):
the more they will participate and actually recycle their different materials.
So in the meantime, we have a really great additional
initiative where we have established recycling drop off locations for people,
single family residents, multi family residents to bring their food
(20:42):
scraps to us and we will then they drop the
materials off with us, and then we truck that material
again to a composting facility where it's turned into another
great new product. So currently we have four locations spread
around the county and we are actually we're continuing to
(21:06):
look and see if we can add more locations, and
we happen to have selected farmers existing farmers' market locations.
We have one in Bethesda, we have one in Silver Spring,
we have one in Drwood, and we have one in Only.
Currently they operate on the weekends and so hopefully, you know,
(21:31):
were convenient to the folks that are living in those
areas and goodness, you know, Dennis, about eight thousand participants
have come through these four locations bringing their food scraps
to us for recycling, and so far we've been able
(21:52):
to recycle over twenty eight tons of materials that folks
that brought to us. Yeah, so it's great. It's really great.
And again that's just something that we put in place
because we do want to make it as convenient as
we can for folks. But also to your point, and
(22:13):
I want, I want to give some time for Kathy
to go through. We also have other two other initiatives
real quickly, I'll touch on multi family and then I'm
going to ask Kathy to go into detail about commercial.
But with our apartment and condominium properties, we are also
working with the different multi family properties and for those
(22:36):
that are pretty progressive and are interested in trying to
set up food scraps recycling programs for all of their residents,
we are working one on one and providing tailor assistants
to each property that's interested and helping them to set
up establish food scraps recycling programs for their residents. And
(23:00):
you know, so far we've had a lot of success
with certain properties and we continue to want more properties
to So if anyone is out there living in an
apartment or condominium or managing a property and is interested,
let us know because we are also very interested in helping.
But Kathy is the manager of an award winning, nationally
(23:26):
recognized program, our commercial food Scraps Recycling Partnership Program and
I'll let Kathy talk a lot more about the details.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Yeah, Kathy, yeah, yeah, And so thanks Eileen for that.
So with the Commercial Foodscraps Recycling Partnership Program, what we
aim to do it's kind of a training withal program.
We want to provide participants with as much handholding as
possible because adding food scraps recycling to your existing operations
(23:56):
can feel really scary.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
So what we do is we.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Work with people who are commercial businesses who are interested
in recycling, and we provide them with all of the education,
all of the educational materials, so you get posters and
you get collection containers, and then additionally we also help
with getting the collection and transporting as the costs associated
(24:22):
with that as well. So we have a truck, we
come out and we pick up the materials and we
provide the service for a limited time to get these
commercial businesses in a good place so they feel confident
in recycling their materials, and then we provide them with
the information. So every time our truck goes out there
to pick up one of these trash cans that has
(24:44):
foods craps in it, we weigh every single can, and
so we can give them that data so they can
either use that data to gradu when they graduate from
the program, they can use that data to hire a
collector or hauler and write size their their waste contract. Additionally,
one of the things that they've used that data for
(25:05):
as well is looking at how do you communicate with
some of the clients that are coming to the restaurant,
because they want to make sure that they are, you know,
eating all the food that they're providing. So they're trying
to tackle food wastes from both ends, from the back
end from the kitchen, in from the scraps that are
being produced, and then from anything that is potentially coming
(25:26):
off people's plates and making sure people are you know,
that their portion sizes are right, and making sure people
are getting what they particularly potentially need while they're eating.
The other program that we have on top of the
commercial program is another program for residents as well. So
similar to you, Dennis, we have some residents in the
county who are really gung ho about recycling their food scraps.
(25:50):
So we do provide kind of training, information and workshops
to get people who want to recycle their fruits and
vegetable food scraps in their backyard. We give them the
best manager practices, We provide them with webinars so that
way people can actually start recycling fruits and vegetable food
waste in their backyard and you know, start reducing the
(26:12):
amount of food scraps that they're generating on site, and
then also make really great soil amendments some composts that
they can use for their vegetable gardens and for their
perennial plants as well.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah, and it works, Anileen, I was just going to
mention that that is a great program, the backyard composting
education we provide and training we provide for our residents
to be able to backyard compost, including with their food scraps.
But one thing, just to be cautious about our training
(26:44):
and our support of these efforts, It really is also
based on the residents using particular compost bins that are
rodent to proof, because we just really want to make sure.
You know, critters are very smart and they're very motivated,
(27:06):
and if they sense or smell that there is food available,
they will go after it. And so what we want
to make sure is that we educate our residents and
work with our residents to compost, including with food straps,
but do it in a way where it's not going
(27:27):
to attract critters. It's not going to create owners, it's
not going to become a new sense that quickly goes
beyond that one residence yard and impacts you know, neighbors
in a neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Right right, So I only have a couple of minutes left,
So Kathy, I'm going to have you do this. I
want you to give the website to everybody and talk
about some details and recap everything, and then I'll come
back to you and we'll kind of wrap things up.
But Kathy, the website fantastic. It's very educational. It's easy
to navigate. What's the website for everybody that they can check.
Got a little bit more about food is Too Good
(28:01):
to Waste?
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (28:03):
So the website is Montgomery County, MD dot gov, forward
Slash Reduced Food Waste and so it on there. It
has all of our videos and also a lot of
our education and brochures as well. You can reach out
to us and we can send you those brochures to
your house if you want to as too, so that
you can get a paper copy, but all of all
of the materials are available digitally on Montgurmy County, MD
(28:25):
dot gov.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Forward Slash Reduced Food Waste.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Standing and IAN. Even though this is kind of coinciding
with Earth Day that's coming up, we want people to
start this regularly, right, We're just kind of giving them
a kind of a benchmark day that everybody celebrates. But
we you know, I think you've got the ball really
rolling great here, don't you.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Oh yeah, absolutely, We want people to do this every
single day, And to us, every day is Earth Day. Yeah,
there might be one specific designation, but to us, it's
it's every single day that everyone can do their part
(29:04):
to reduce waste to begin with, and to then also
recycle everything that they can recycle. And that's just something
that we want to instill great habits and people. We
want people to understand why it's so important, but we
(29:26):
just really want everybody to do this as much as possible.
Working together, we are going to be able to make
great progress and reach our goal of zero waste. Reduce
waste to begin with, reuse everything that can be reused
over and over again, and then you know, at the
(29:47):
end of utilizing materials, recycle everything that can be recycled.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Outstanding, well said Eileen Cathy, Thank you so much for
joining us on Community DC. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Thanks Jannis
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