Let’s prevent food waste, Roseburg!

ROSEBURG, Ore. – The fast-approaching holidays throw a spotlight on food and feasts – offering our community a prime opportunity to dig into food waste prevention.

With Thanksgiving dinner celebrations just around the corner, the City of Roseburg is launching its new food waste prevention webpages on the City’s website. The new webpages follow eight recycling and waste prevention webpages unveiled in July.

“We encourage individuals and businesses to prevent food waste,” said Roseburg Community Development Department Director Stuart Cowie. “This will save you money and cut back on the amount of waste that ends up in our trash and landfill. Steps that, although they may seem small, can help to better our community.”

The pages can be found on the City’s website at cityofroseburg.org and its “How do I…?” drop-down menu item, “Recycle/Waste Prevention.”

On the new webpages, residents and businesses can learn the importance of preventing food waste and how we can all make a difference right here in our community – saving money while helping to protect natural resources.

Globally, about one-third of all food produced for people around the planet is estimated to be wasted or lost – and that loss and waste generates almost 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Food is currently the single-biggest material in our trash.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality reports the average household loses about $1,600 a year by throwing away spoiled food. At the same time, about 10% of U.S. homes are food insecure at some time during the year.

The City’s new food waste prevention webpages can help you start or expand food waste prevention efforts with Top 10 Tips for homes and businesses.

Residents will find tips on such things as meal planning, buying, storage and using leftovers, including how to turn trimmings into homemade soup stock. Businesses will find tips on auditing food waste, brainstorming as a team, prep ideas, menu customization and stretching your budget by using everything you can.

Extra resources found on the webpages include links to tips and instruction on everything from canning and composting to videos on food waste reduction training and how to perform a waste stream audit.

The webpages launched in July contain information about how and where to recycle; how you can reduce, reuse, repurpose and repair to forge a sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle; and inspiring ideas for repurposing stuff you already have. You can find a sizeable list with all kinds of community recycling alternatives put together by the City with some information provided courtesy of our community partner, Douglas County Public Works’ Solid Waste Division.