Food Waste

Holiday meals, and their delicious leftovers, fill our hearts and our stomachs. Too often though, they end up filling our landfills too. As a country America throws out 200 million pounds of turkey each Thanksgiving, and that's only a portion of a single meal. This year, take a moment to be sure that none of this special food, as well as the resources it took to produce and transport it to you, go to waste!

To start, only purchase as much food as you and your guests will eat. Don't put yourself in the position of struggling to store more leftovers than you can eat. The Guest-imator ( https://savethefood.com/guestimator ) can help determine how much food will satisfy guests with different appetites, including any leftovers you might want.

As delightful as leftovers can be for the first few days, you may tire of them. Avoid having too many leftovers by asking guests to bring to-go containers so they can share in the joys of next-day eats. After you've had your fill of leftovers, do not throw them away, freeze them instead. It will be a small gift to yourself a few weeks down the line when you can take a night off by defrosting and reheating the last of these dishes. Just make sure you freeze the food no later than four days after it was prepared.

Inevitably there will be food waste during the holidays. Here are a few Do's and Don'ts for managing food waste:

• DON'T pour ANY fats, oils, or grease down the drain. These create costly buildups in your pipes and are a big mess! DO wipe them up with paper towels and put them in your organics bin, otherwise store them in a plastic bottle with a resealable lid and drop them off at a Household Hazardous Waste Facility ( https://www.hayward-ca.gov/services/city-services/household-hazardous-waste-disposal )

• DON'T throw unwanted food in the garbage. Nearly half of all disposed organic material in Alameda County is still being sent to the landfill where it fails to break down properly and emits methane, a highly polluting greenhouse gas.

• DO put any unwanted food or scraps in your organics cart. This way the organics can get turned into compost, a useful soil additive that you can pick up at Hayward's compost giveaways!

• DO remove any plastic from the food scraps you put in the compost bin. One fifth of the cost to compost facilities in creating compost is removing plastic contamination, a cost that ultimately gets passed onto consumers through their organics service fee.

• DO put food-soiled fibrous materials like paper towels and cardboard in the compost bin. Paper and cardboard can be recycled into new products when they are clean, but once they get dirty, they belong with organics where they can break down into compost.

• DO remember that composting is not just for food scraps, it is also for your yard waste! Be sure to dispose of your lawn clippings, trimmed branches, and fall leaves into the organics bin too.