This is Rubbish host ‘Feast’ at Machynlleth Market, Wednesday 10th November from 12 – 2pm, a theatrical community banquet from food that would otherwise have been wasted.

Over 20 million tonnes of good food is wasted in the UK alone every year whilst 4 million of its citizens are unable to access or afford a nutritional diet. If we stopped wasting food that could have been eaten, we could also reduce environmental impacts, the equivalent of taking 1 in 4 cars off UK roads! Tackling the problem at every stage of the food supply chain can significantly reduce green house gas emissions, save consumers money and stop good food going to waste.

This is Rubbish is an anti food waste campaign that aims to demonstrate the industrial scale of food waste through arts led public events. This Wednesday they host a banquet on Machynlleth Market, where you can literally ‘feast’ on the surrounding issues of food waste. Read on >

Well, we’ve been holiday and have taken the This is Rubbish skip to Planet of the Antics at Secret Garden Party, where we filled it with edible and delightful herbs, all of which were surplus and otherwise would’ve been wasted. We were invited to attend a BBC food waste documentary, and our media hawk and environmental spokesperson Dora Clouttick mingled with the VIP members of waste reduction land. This is Rubbish was also featured in the Ecologist magazine, read about it here.

On Sunday the 11th of April, This is Rubbish, Pangolin’s Ark and The Arcola Theatre curated and delivered a sustainable food marathon as part of the Arcola’s Green Sunday program.

There were free food events, workshops and talks during the day with a range of experts, artists and collaborators making the program diverse, informative and creative. In the day, guest speakers included Kelvin Chung Director of Food Cycle, Lisa Stockton, manager of Happy Kitchens, Anna Jones from Greenpeace, Part time Carnivore and Rebecca Temple from SOAS food coop. We also had artists running workshops including edible poetry from Talia Randall, the mobile dining table from Alex Parry and chocolate sculptures from Tabitha Gravener and Will Vanwyngaarden who created a satirical food advertisement. Down to Earth were donated a range of vegetable and salad seeds by Sutton’s that were given out to be planted during the day and at the evenings feast. We hope that many seeds will be planted and the harvest digested in the near future.

The evenings feast Dining Down to Earth was a delicious mix of food, arts, and education. The three course menu consisted of food that otherwise would’ve been wasted, sourced with help from Foodcycle from Sainsbury’s and a large London fruit and veg wholesale market. Other ingredients that could not be sourced as surplus were kindly donated by Abel and Cole. The feast also included bread baked by organic Homerton baker Ben MacKinnon of East London Bakehouse, and tasters of Freedom, a frozen fruit smoothie delivered by the Freedom Project, made from ingredients that otherwise would’ve been wasted handed round at dessert. This is Rubbish would like to say a big thank you to Foodcycle, Sainsbury’s, Abel and Cole,  our Wholesale market links The Freedom Project and Ben Mackinnon for providing This is Rubbish with the surplus and sustainably sourced ingredients. The plates were provided by The Whole Leaf company, and the compost caddies that stored the freshly chopped fruit were kindly donated by British Bins. A huge thank you to all organisations that supported the realisation of Dining Down to Earth. Read on >