(image taken from: http://www.amazon.com/)
Chapters and Pages
This week I read pages 226-298. I covered half of chapter 14 through chapter 18 and also the afterword.
Main Topics
One main topic I read about this week was anaerobic digestion. This occurs in areas like bogs and can create a can called methane through the breakdown process. Methane has been found recently to be an environmentally beneficial biofuel. Anaerobic digestion is also been found eco-friendly when it comes to treatment of sewage, treating food waste, and farm slurries. This gas can also be be burned to produce electricity and the hot water waste can be used to provide heating in industries and homes. The leftover decomposed organic matter can also be used as a fertilizer.
Another topic I read about this week was that many years ago pigs were used as a way of reducing waste. Families kept pigs around and would feed them their food wastes each day. This eliminated much garbage that was being brought to landfills and being disposed. However, after foot-and-mouth virus broke out because someone did not correctly cook this food before giving it to their animals, this was banned. This lead to much larger amounts of wasted food and landfills starting to pile up.
Another topic that was also discussed was how Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea have much less waste than most other countries. This is because these countries have been taught from a young age that if there is food uneaten after a meal that it was a sign of ingratitude towards the farmers. This is very disrespectful in their culture. The South Koreans and Taiwanians also largely obey their recycling of wastes laws. They are not allowed to sent any food waste to the landfills what-so-ever. So they use this waste as animal feed and the rest they compost.
Significant Ideas
Some significant things I learned is that we really need to resort to going back to how things were run many years ago by recycling our wastes better and finding different uses for them. I also learned that Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea have the right idea going and that Western Countries like the U.S. should follow in their footsteps to start eliminating the amount of waste we produce.
Terminology
Arduous - requiring great exertion; laborious; difficult (taken from: http://dictionary.reference.com/)
Ferment - any of a group of living organisms, as yeasts, molds, and certain bacteria, that cause fermentation. (taken from: http://dictionary.reference.com)
Anaerobic digestion - is a biological process that produces a gas principally composed of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) otherwise known as biogas.(taken from: www.energy.ca.gov/biomass/anaerobic.html)
Overview of Book
Overall, this book talked about many different topics that lead to food waste in our world. Farming in developing countries, consumer's high expectations (cosmetic standards), manufacturers over-production of food, and convenience all lead to the mass amounts of waste our world sees today.
3 Most Significant Things I learned
- As consumers we need to learn how to lower our expectations. Food does not taste different because it looks smaller or not "normal".
- Countries who are more wealthy need to lend a hand to those in developing countries in order to help reduce their waste. They cannot do it alone.
- Supermarkets need to learn to not overstock their shelves in order to lessen waste.
These three things are very important to me because I think these are the main ways that the world can reduce the mass amount of waste we have created. If we start letting supermarkets know that we do not care how our produce looks then we will help lower the amount of waste greatly. Also, we need to understand that developing countries do not have the money or resources in order to reduce and stop waste on their own. We need to teach them and help provide these necessary resources to make a difference in our environment.
Do I recommend this book? Why or why not?
I would but also would not recommend this book. I thought the book was very informational and gave some great ideas as to how to reduce waste, but to me it was a pretty boring book. It was very factual and much of it was in the metric system so I did not understand a lot of what these measurements even meant. So I am a bit torn as to if I would actually recommend this book.
I agree that we as consumers need to lower expectations of what foods look like if we are going to reduce waste. The only problem is that I think many people want "as much bang for their buck" as they can get with the not so good economy. When people are picking out fruits and vegetables they are looking for the biggest ones for the price they are paying.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the US seems to be further ahead that a lot of countries, I get the feeling we are WAY behind as far as sustainability. I hope that someday we have a ban on food waste, and start coming up with more sustainable ways to use it too.
ReplyDeleteThat's too bad that you found the book to be a little boring, so I will probably not really look into reading it! My book was great AND easy to read, Do One Green Thing by Mindy Pennybacker - check it out, or you could borrow it from me if you wanted!
ReplyDeleteI agree we need to do some things we did way back when especially recycle. I remember when our farm had pigs a long time ago. We would always feed them our watermelon rinds.
ReplyDeleteThat is too bad that your book did not keep your interest very well. My book was sometimes a bit boring too, but at least you learned a few new things, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete