Food waste is a pandemic issue, and just in case that’s not enough to get your blood boiling, the United States, Europe, and Asia combined throw away enough food to feed the entire world’s population three times over. Luckily for the planet and everyone living on it, there are plenty of people out there fighting the good fight and discovering brand new ways to ease the pain of food loss.
Like Too Good to Go, a fairly simple smartphone app that allows you to search for participating restaurants in your area — so long as you’re looking anywhere in the U.K. (Expect this to change soon.) Once you find and select a restaurant, you pay in-app and set up a time — after either the lunch or dinner rush — to pick up your food. At the restaurant, you’ll be given a box to fill with leftover food from the kitchen that would otherwise be thrown out. And no, this doesn’t mean collecting scraps from other people’s plates, but rather whatever’s left unused in the kitchen. In the end, each box of food will cost you between $2.60 and $5.30.
Food waste has deeply troubling auxiliary issues attached to it. For instance, the water wasted by tossing that much food is equal to 3.6 times the amount of water the entire United States consumes. Then there’s the atmospheric impact, as CO2 emissions from food rotting in landfills is equal to 25% of all cars on the road, and restaurants are one of the biggest perpetrators of this problem.
Too Good to Go gives restaurants a chance to make some extra income, or at least break even on food that would otherwise be causing more harm than good. It also gives savvy early adopters the chance to eat good food for a small price. Check out some of the options currently available below.
(Via Business Insider)
