Join the TiR family as a Non-executive Director ? ?

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Are you a food waste warrior? Would you like to help us make changes to a broken food system?

This is Rubbish (TiR) works to reduce food waste from farm to fork; using policy campaigns, values-led education, the arts and public events.

Our activity is underpinned by the three guiding values: Active citizenship, social justice and environmental justice.

Food waste is an environmental and social tragedy:

  • UK businesses throw out over 7 million tonnes of food annually, that is enough to lift all the hungry people in the UK out of food poverty, and equal to about half the food wasted in the UK.
  • If food waste were a country it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

TiR is looking to recruit new non- executive directors to join the current team in guiding the strategic direction of the organisation and ensure that projects are working towards goals in a competent and creative manner in line with TiR ideals and standards. The organisation focuses on positive messaging around the value of food. Joining our team will mean eating a lot of delicious food and meeting a broad spectrum of inspiring people through our campaiging and events as soon as government guidelines permit.

The three keys areas of TiR’s work that the directors will oversee and facilitate are;

  • Affecting change thought campaigning
  • Values-led Education
  • Day to day management

Director role and responsibilities include;

  • Defining and delivering organisational aims, objectives and strategic direction
  • Providing guidance for the organisation and specific projects
  • Providing high level organisational and project direction
  • Reviewing and upholding policies
  • Signing off and being a named senior contact on funding applications
  • Ensuring that TiR, a Community Interest Company complies with its constitution, company law and reports to Companies House.
  • Bringing relevant outside perspective to organisational direction, development and growth
  • Safeguarding the good name and values of the organisation
  • Being an advocate for This is Rubbish and its cause at all times – asking people to join, giving out leaflets, networking and talking about our work

Please email mickey@thisisrubbish.org.uk to request the document ‘ TiR Director Roles and Responsibilities’ for full details.

Time Commitment

All volunteer director input in valuable. The primary requirement is for realistic commitments to enable accurate planning and achievable targets.

All directors required to attend;

  • Video calls every 2 months or when needed for working group tasks.
  • Quarterly face to face meetings

What TiR seeks from new non- executive directors

The TiR facilitators are a motivated, passionate and creative team. We seek individuals who can demonstrate that they are driven to make a difference to social and environmental issues and will find working with the current team fun/interesting/ exciting and rewarding.

Previous engagement in social and environmental issues does not need be related to food waste but a background working or volunteering in the charitable sector is desirable.

We seek individuals with significant experience and skills which cover some of the following areas:

  • Accounting and financial management
  • Fundraising
  • HR
  • Project management
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • Community and youth engagement
  • Website Development

Why be a TiR non-executive director

This is an excellent opportunity to take up a senior role in a respected, national CIC which has the potential to bring about significant changes to supermarket supply chain practice.

You will also be part of groundbreaking work to reframe the food waste narrative as a problem rooted in inequality, the legacy of colonialism and neoliberal capitalism.

The role is voluntary although we will pay all out-of-pocket expenses with prior agreement.

This is a remote working role.

How to apply

Please submit your CV and covering letter (1 page maximum) to info@thisisrubbish.org.uk by 05/04/21. Interviews to take place late April.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Rubbish Team

Talking rubbish at the Youth Climate Summit

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This is Rubbish was proud to take part in the nationwide Youth Climate Summit, November 9th – 13th. The summit, lead by London Schools Eco-Network, Global Action Plan and many volunteer teachers and educators had five themed days and Golden Threads which ran throughout all events at the summit:

  • Climate, Social & Racial Justice
  • Education, Skills & Careers
  • Health & Wellbeing

This Winter the need to recognise the interrelated nature of the messy challenges the world faces couldn’t be more apparent. Like most other ‘environmental’ issues, food waste is multifaceted in its causes and impacts. It felt pertinent to be part of this summit which encouraged everyone, teachers and students, to link issues together and tackle the complexity. It was hugely heartening to observe young people discussing and learning about these challenges in a confident and critical way. They came up with five powerful Youth Climate Calls to send to COP26 delegates ahead of next year’s conference. 

This is Rubbish was one of the four organisations in the Food, Farming and Forests theme focus session for primary schools. This session charted the story of the food supply chain, from discovering the importance for soil and microbes with a researcher from Dundee University, to the devastating impacts of deforestation for soya production with Animal Aid. 

Our Cirque de Surplus characters rounded up the session doing what they do best – talking rubbish. See below: 

Role Vacancy: This is Rubbish Campaign Coordinator – Communications & Engagement Lead 

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This is Rubbish Campaign Coordinator – Communications & Engagement Lead 

This is Rubbish (TiR) is now in its 10th year of working to raise awareness and change policy to reduce industry scale, pre-consumer food waste. TiR has been awarded funding by Poldham Puckham Charitable Trust to run a campaign to challenge the current perception of the issues and solutions for reducing food waste. In true TiR style the project will combine creative methods of engagement and events to build networks, while forming and promoting systemic policy changes.

Job purpose: 

This is Rubbish is recruiting a Campaign Coordinator who is committed to acting to reduce food waste and exposing the root causes that are mutual to many global environmental and social problems today.

The Campaign Coordinator leading on Communications and Engagement will collaborate with the Campaign Coordinator leading on Policy and Partnerships to jointly implement a project designed to challenge and shift the current narrative of food waste. The primary target audience are statutory organisations and stakeholders working in the field of environmental sustainability and climate justice. Both Campaign Coordinators will initially work alongside TiR Facilitators to shape the project and will work to their individual strengths to meet funded outputs and outcomes. 

Key activities/tasks

This role will focus on developing and communicating key messaging about the food system for  specific audiences, events & organisations and producing and promoting digital content.

  • Create comms strategy for reframing food waste narrative in terms which are accessible and appealing to different groups or audiences.
  • Identify and develop a set of targets and reporting indicators across campaign activity to effectively monitor impact in collaboration with the policy & partnership lead.  
  • Create key campaign content for media, social media and events including working with an animator and Partnerships & Policy Lead on the campaign film.  
  • Working with the Cirque de Surplus team, organise and deliver events targeted at shifting attitudes to food waste and making the connections between wasteful supply chains and broader societal problems like inequality, neoliberalism and colonialism.
  • Seek opportunities to participate in other suitable events to promote the campaign
  • Producing events with partners and other stakeholders to reach key organisations and sections of the public.
  • Managing activities and spending in-line with a project timeline and budget agreed with the project team.
  • Work strategically to extend the reach of TiR.
  • Seek opportunities to gain funding or commissions for TiR’s public engagement project ‘Cirque de Surplus’ to do development and outreach.
  • Work with the Policy & Partnerships lead to report on the effectiveness of campaigning tools and strategies and suggest ways forward.
  • Work closely with and brief Facilitators on campaign actions and progress.

Essential skills:

  • Experience of campaigning from inception through to delivery and evaluation.
  • Experience in designing effective social media and content for achieving campaign targets
  • Experience of communicating ideas to diverse audiences persuasively, with a view to shifting beliefs and deeper values
  • Experience of community outreach or mobilisation
  • Experience of events organisation and delivery
  • Knowledge and/or interest in food waste and current issues of the food system within broader context of sustainability and social justice
  • Good communication and interpersonal skills
  • Excellent IT skills
  • Experience managing budgets
  • Experience of effective networking and partnership work 
  • Strong numeracy, verbal and written communication and organisational skills with the ability to respond to queries in a timely and professional manner 
  • Ability to manage work time effectively and to prioritise appropriately, managing multiple project briefs
  • Enjoy sharing meals with colleagues

Desirable: 

  • Graphic design skills
  • Interest/education in fields of inequality, colonialism and neoliberalism.
  • Clean driving license
  • A background working on social and/or environmental justice campaigns

Fee: £120 per day @ 1.5 days per week

Contract period: Project beginning early April 2020. 6 months with the anticipated extension to 12 months

Location: Working remotely with hot desking space near Walthamstow, St James    Street and meeting space, Mare Street, Hackney.

Reports to: Designated This is Rubbish Facilitator.

Working with: Working closely with the Campaign Coordinator – Policy & Partnerships Lead. You will also work closely with an animator, the This is Rubbish Facilitator leading on communications and the This is Rubbish Facilitators who developed the project.

How to apply: Please send your CV and a brief covering letter (maximum 1 page) describing your suitability, experience and interest in this role to poppy@thisisrubbish.org.uk by 9am on Friday 13th March.

Full Job Description Download available here. 

Please complete an Equal Opportunities form online here. This form is not part of the application assessment process.

Interviews: Interviews will take place in East London on Friday 20th March. Please inform us if you are unable to make that date, we will be as flexible as possible.

Accessibility: This is Rubbish is an equal opportunity employer (see statement at the bottom of this job specification). Candidates who are shortlisted for interview will be given the opportunity to specify any access needs so that appropriate arrangements can be made.

Food waste in the future

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Photo: Chris King

It’s doubtful people will be going to the polls with food waste on their minds this election.  The future of the NHS, Brexit and climate change have dominated the election campaigns, and for good reason. If you’re reading this, you’re probably no stranger to the climate implications of food waste. Hubbub’s recently published research showed this issue is very important to people and that they believe retailers play a significant role in shaping our habits. In fact, what it shows is that people are looking to individuals, communities and the market to resolve the issue and that’s what we’ve been told to do.

This is Rubbish (TiR) has been looking at the issue in the wider context of global food and agriculture and what will happen in this country after the election. Nearly a billion people living in food poverty globally could be fed on less than a quarter of the food being wasted in the UK, US and Europe while the Government’s Environmental Audit Committee found that between 1.97 and 3 million people in the UK are undernourished and in London alone 9 million meals a day are needed to alleviate hunger according to City Harvest. This is happening in a country where, according to the latest estimates by WRAP, around 10 million tonnes of food and drink is wasted after the farm every year. Out of this, approximately 70% is avoidable wastage which could have been used to feed the hungry and malnutritioned. How are we getting it so wrong? Not only are redistribution initiatives unable to meet the demands of the problem but this strategy does not alleviate the environmental harm caused by a broken food system.

After many years of campaigning, in 2014 TiR set out to deliver education programmes that informed young people about the causes and effects of food waste. That is, when they throw food away, they are wasting everything that went into its production. Even though the proportion of food wasted at the consumption stage is 22% of the total, the carbon footprint at this stage is almost 37% of the total carbon footprint of the food chain. The next step is to examine how the system is allowing this to happen when the costs are so high. The very fact that we can and have been wasting up to a third of all food that is produced is because we have a food system predicated on market forces with little or no accountability. In reality this means that we can exploit the land and resources of poorer countries and transfer waste onto them through unfair trading practises. We can do this in a country where the retail sector has the ability to set prices and pick and choose from global food markets regardless of the human and environmental cost.

Prominent figures from the world of finance are finally saying we need to “rethink capitalism and its obsession with constant economic growth” and that our current system “borrows from the future while destroying the environment” as reported last month in the FT.

Transition is inevitable, justice is not

We know we need to address climate change. Channel 4’s recent climate debate shows how seriously most of the leadership candidates are taking this. However, there is a danger of focusing the narrative around single issues rather than looking at the social and economic drivers of the climate crisis.

We cannot put in place goals for our own country without looking at what they mean for other countries. If we do this, we will surely never be able to address climate change in time. We need to look at the problems of the food system, including waste, as rooted in global inequality perpetuated by our economics. We are already seeing that climate change is forcing migration due to food and water shortages and the political instability that follows. Continuing down a road of extractive and consumptive behaviour will exacerbate this.

Across the world we are seeing calls for a Just Transition. The Green New Deal movement, The TUC, Friends of the Earth (FoE) to name a few, have identified that carbon neutrality cannot be achieved using old thinking and exploitation of the local or international labour force. In this country, nobody wants to see lives affected as they were by the shutting of the coal mines in the 1980’s.

As FoE rightly puts it “The real choice is not jobs or climate. It’s both or neither. Transition is inevitable, justice is not.” When we signed the Paris Accord we agreed to  ‘Take into account the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities.” TiR is looking to the next government to honour this.

TiR agrees with the findings of the 2018 EAT-Lancet report: food will be the defining issue of this century we are calling for the next Government to help design waste out of the supply chain and fix a broken system. Our next campaign will seek to engage stakeholders in changing the narrative to reframe food waste as a problem rooted in inequality and power imbalances.

To keep up to date with the campaign sign up for our newsletter here or go to our donation page here.

Food waste: the impact on climate change

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by Hammad Kazi

With momentum around climate change campaigning unlike any we’ve seen – Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg and global school strikes – the issue is at the forefront of public consciousness. Naturally, at This is Rubbish, we tend to zero in on the food waste side of things. So how much is food waste really contributing to global emissions?

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that about 33% of food produced for human consumption is lost or thrown away every year amounting to about 1.3 billion tons [1]; this figure reflects not only inefficiency but also apathy.  We must remind ourselves that almost a billion people around the world go hungry regularly. According to statistics published by the FAO, about 821 million people were suffering from chronic under-nourishment in 2017 [2]. In addition to this moral implication of food waste there are also economic implications: food wasted through the supply chain represents wasted resources which could have otherwise been used for better purposes. This article, however, addresses yet another implication of food waste: the impact on climate change.

There are many stages in the life cycle of a food product as it passes through a typical supply chain, shown in a very basic diagram below.

There are many intermediate steps in between each stage and there are many sub-stages within each stage as well. For example, agricultural production of wheat would require preparation and planting of the crop seeds, irrigation and maintenance of the crops. Between agricultural production and post-harvest is the process of harvesting the crop. Similarly, post-harvest itself involves handling and storage.

As intuition may reveal, food waste (or loss) can occur at each stage of the life cycle. Food is considered ‘lost’ during the first three to four stages of the cycle while it is considered ‘wasted’ in the final two stages. Fruit that falls off a conveyor belt in a processing plant will be considered ‘food loss’ while an opened tin of processed fruit that is thrown away in the household will be considered ‘food waste’. Whatever terminology is taken, the result remains the same: there is some environmental implication to this loss or wastage and the more stages that the food passes through the more the environmental impact (or carbon footprint) is associated with it. There is a certain amount of food that is lost / wasted at each stage while there is a certain environmental impact of the process during that particular stage as well. This is shown in the following figure with an estimation of global contribution of each stage of the food supply chain to food wastage and carbon footprint [3].

Even though there is about 22% of food wastage occurring at the consumption stage, the carbon footprint of this stage is very high (almost 37% of the carbon footprint of the total supply chain). This is expected; the carbon footprint of any food at the consumption stage is the sum of the carbon footprint occurring at every stage before consumption as well as during consumption and even after consumption.

Different types of food have different intensities of carbon footprint associated with them as well. This depends on the life cycle of the food; the entire process of growing, harvesting, processing and packaging varies according to the type of food and therefore different food products have different amounts of environmental impact associated with them. The following figure shows the global aggregate contribution of different commodities towards carbon footprint and food wastage (within their life cycle).

It isn’t a simple calculation though and not one that can be representative across different countries. For example, the carbon intensity of a product (such as carrots) would vary in different parts of the world according to the processes employed in the various stages of its life cycle. This is how food at the table represents an expended amount of carbon footprint which has accumulated over the entire journey that the food product has taken from the beginning. Therefore, it is critical for people to produce and consume food products responsibly as every product has already impacted the environment during its journey from farm to fork.

It is important to identify the factors that cause food to be lost or wasted at different points during the product supply chain. In developing countries there needs to be focus on reducing food loss during the first two stages of the supply chain, especially post-harvesting handling and storage. Food loss during processing is controlled as it usually affects the bottom-line of the processing industry itself. Stricter government regulations and policies are needed around the world to focus on the impact of food waste on the environment and it is important to promote technological and systems-based approaches to reduce the loss of food during the first few stages of the production supply chain.

In the developed world, more effort needs to be put in to reduce wastage at the consumption level. One model that can be used to identify and highlight different ways to help reduce food waste is the Food Waste Pyramid, developed by the food waste campaign group Feedback [4].  

The next two steps cover waste management: 

Compost & renewable energy: food that is still left over should then be sent for composting or conversion to bio-fuel

Disposal: the last alternative should be sending food waste to landfills

The environmental impact of food loss / waste is a monumental problem and its impact on climate change cannot be ignored. According to The World Resources Institute, the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission levels due to global food wastage were about 4.4 billion tonnes of Carbon Dioxide equivalent in 2011; if food wastage was a country it would be the third-highest emitter of GHG emissions in the world [5]. And while the wastage of food has serious moral and economics implications as well, we must not ignore the drastic consequences that it has on climate change and the environmental sustainability of our planet.

Sources and references:

[1] http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/

[2] http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/

[3] http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/ar429e/ar429e.pdf

[4] http://feeding5k.org/businesses+casestudies.php

[5] https://www.wri.org/our-work/project/cait-climate-data-explorer

[6] http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/

[7] http://www.fao.org/3/a-bb144e.pdf

Food Rescue: Smoothies in a Storm

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On a cold day in February young people from the borough took their first steps towards enterprising careers in food rescue. Six young men from Project 2020 took up the challenge of serving smoothies in the snow at Tottenham Green Market on Sunday 11th February.

This marked the culmination of an Edible Enterprise programme hosted by the project in partnership with This is Rubbish (TiR), a Community Interest Company which works to reduce industry and supply chain food waste in the UK.

Fruit was rescued from local wholesale markets and donated by Sainsbury’s instead of being thrown away and was converted into delicious, nutritious smoothies by the young people. Tropical flavours were on the menu as hail fell from the sky, but market goers were undeterred and dozens of low-cost drinks were sold. The young people showed remarkable resilience and gained an opportunity to put their learning about food enterprise and the environment into practise. The day entitled “Respect them Smoothies” finished on a high note, with one young man telling us “I liked helping each other and the community.”

Tottenham Green Market promotes community by celebrating street food, crafts & vintage from the local area and beyond each Sunday from 11.00am – 4.00pm. The group were granted a free pitch to trial their enterprise. The young people really rose to the challenge and put their best foot forward despite the hail. Some said it was their favourite part of the programme and all of them learnt valuable skills.

Each year about one third of all food produced globally is wasted, translating to 1.3 billion tonnes. About half of this food never reaches the consumer. Many crops are left unharvested because they are too wonky or the wrong size. Research has shown that a leading supermarket threw away about 70% of bagged salads in 2016 and nearly half of all bakery items in previous years. These are shocking figures, but we know the young people of Tottenham will be doing their bit to reduce waste.

Over the course of the programme, the young people met entrepreneurs who started businesses around food surplus, such as the Founder of Dash Water who use wonky fruit and vegetables to flavour their drinks. They also learned about healthy eating and cooking with vegetables, one claimed “The best thing was learning to cook with more vegetables and less meat.”

This is Rubbish CIC was started in 2011 by volunteers who used theatre and feasting to raise awareness of food waste. In 2014, many of the original ideas were brought together to form the basis of Edible Education, a programme for young people promoting active citizenship. The education team delivered interactive school workshops, assemblies and after school clubs tailored for diverse groups. They are currently working with young people from refugee backgrounds through partnerships with charities.

This is Rubbish like to save food with a smile – they bring their unique Cirque de Surplus acts and activities to public spaces to spread the message about food waste. Watch out for a three legged carrot race or a giant salad toss at an event near you this summer.

Alongside the youth work and public engagement, TiR has been campaigning for legislation to reduce food waste. Mickey Reedy from TiR said: “If the UK sets binding targets for reduction then big businesses will be accountable for their practises and the responsibility won’t fall solely to the consumer. People are becoming aware of the vast amount of food which goes unharvested, unsold, or uneaten and they want to see a change. Government policies to reduce food waste could make a real environmental and social difference.” TiR’s Stop the Rot Campaign gathered nearly a quarter of a million signatures and the work continues.

 

Join us: Apply to be a director of This is Rubbish

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Are you a food waste warrior? Would you like to help us make changes to a broken food system?

This is Rubbish (TiR) works to reduce food waste from farm to fork; using policy campaigns, values-led education, the arts and public events. In 2018 we are expanding our work to include reducing consumer food waste supporting the aims of SDG 12.3 and respond the the changing political and social landscape. Our activity is underpinned by the three guiding values: Active citizenship, social justice and environmental justice.

Food waste is an environmental and social tragedy. UK businesses throw out over 7 million tonnes of food annually, that is enough to lift all the hungry people in the UK out of food poverty, and equal to about half the food wasted in the UK. If food waste were a country it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

TiR is looking to recruit new non- executive directors to join the current team in guiding the strategic direction of the organisation and ensure that projects are working towards goals in a competent and creative manner in line with TiR ideals and standards. The organisation focuses on positive messaging around the value of food. Joining our team will mean eating a lot of delicious food and meeting a broad spectrum of inspiring people through our campaiging and events.

The three keys areas of TiR’s work that the directors will oversee and facilitate are;

  • Affecting change thought campaigning
  • Values-led Education
  • Day to day management

To apply please submit your CV and covering letter (1 page maximum) to mickey@thisisrubbish.org.uk by 18/06/18. Interviews to take place late June.

Director role and responsibilities include;

  • Defining and delivering organisational aims, objectives and strategic direction
  • Providing guidance for the organisation and specific projects
  • Providing high level organisational and project direction
  • Reviewing and upholding policies
  • Signing off and being a named senior contact on funding applications
  • Ensuring that TiR, a Community Interest Company complies with its constitution, company law and reports to Companies House.
  • Bringing relevant outside perspective to organisational direction, development and growth
  • Safeguarding the good name and values of the organisation
  • Being an advocate for This is Rubbish and its cause at all times – asking people to join, giving out leaflets, networking and talking about our work

Please email mickey@thisisrubbish.org.uk to request the document ‘ TiR Director Roles and Responsibilities’ for full details.

Time Commitment
All volunteer director input in valuable. The primary requirement is for realistic commitments to enable accurate planning and achievable targets. All directors required to attend: monthly skype catch up calls, and quarterly face to face meetings

What TiR seeks from new non- executive directors
The TiR facilitators are a motivated, passionate and creative team. We seek individuals who can demonstrate that they are driven to make a difference to social and environmental issues and will find working with the current team fun/interesting/ exciting and rewarding.

Previous engagement in social and environmental issues does not need be related to food waste. We seek individuals with significant experience and skills which cover some of the following areas:

  • Accounting and financial management
  • Fundraising
  • Communications and media relations
  • Food policy
  • Community and youth engagement

Why be a TiR non-executive director?
This is an excellent opportunity to take up a senior role in a respected, national CIC which has the potential to bring about significant changes to supermarket supply chain practice. You will also be guiding the new Edible Education project which has the potential to reach 1000’s of young people and give them a platform to make their views and ideas heard.

Benefits include:

  • A great opportunity to use your existing experience and to develop new skills
  • Flexible involvement – skype meetings to salvaging surplus food.
  • Working with others to make a difference both locally and nationally
  • The potential to meet and discuss issues with like-minded people

The role is voluntary although we will pay all out-of-pocket expenses with prior agreement.

 

We look forward to hearing from you. The Rubbish Team

Getting to the root of the problem: food waste, food poverty & redistribution

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Banner image: Mack Male 

Mickey Reedy, Co – Director at This is Rubbish

This week The Evening Standard announced, for the second time, that it had found the solution to food waste. The solution is redistribution by way of The Felix Project. Hilary Croft, Felix Project Chief Executive, claimed “It’s the fact that food poverty is so avoidable in this country that is maddening. [This can be] solved by putting in place simple measures of redistribution.”

Hilary is correct that the crisis of food poverty is avoidable. But the truly maddening part is that not enough is being done to alleviate the deep causes of poverty, such as cuts to vital benefits and paucity of secure, adequately paid jobs. 60% of people in poverty in Britain are in working families, according to a recent study by Cardiff University. I find it maddening that 70,000 London children are going to school hungry while an estimated one in five shopping baskets worth of food is thrown away. Above all I find it maddening that the solution is to continue with business as usual finding a way to justify systemic waste as a solution to poverty rather than examining the root causes of both. The assertion that food redistribution is “a simple solution” is misleading.

According to The Institute for Fiscal Studies Nearly 4m children are currently growing up in poverty in the UK after their families’ housing costs are taken into account. The IFS predicts we could see over a million more children growing up in poverty by 2022. The journalist Margaret Greenwood recently wrote that the last Labour government made tackling child poverty a key priority, from the creation of Sure Start centres to increases in social security and employment support targeted at lone parent families.

It paid off – between 1997 and 2010 child poverty fell by 1.1m and the employment rate for single parents increased from 44 per cent to 57 per cent.

Since 2010, progress in reducing child poverty first stalled and then after 2015 has gone into reverse. The government not only abandoned the targets set by the last Labour government to cut child poverty, but abolished the Child Poverty Unit set up to coordinate policy across government.

Much could be and has been said about benefit cuts, policy and government spending. According to the IFS absolute child poverty is projected to increase from 15.1% in 2015–16 to 18.3% in 2020–21. This increase is driven entirely by a sharp rise in poverty among families with three or more children, which is itself the result of planned tax and benefit reforms. To quote the food policy expert, Tim Lang from the centre for Food Policy at City University, “choose your parents well.” Or in this case, your siblings.

We cannot fix poverty and climate change on a meal by meal basis. TiR is calling for systemic change supported by environmental and socially just policies because carrying on business as usual will leave a devastating legacy for tomorrow’s children

As a chef, an educator and a human being, I find child hunger, malnourishment and their well-documented education and social outcomes heart breaking. I’ve heard of teachers buying breakfast cereal for their primary students, children unable to complete football tournaments due to holiday hunger and schools unable to access funding for breakfast clubs because they cannot prove the level of need. If parents are reluctant to apply for free school meals, it begs the question whether they will queue up to receive hand outs from The Felix Project.

This is Rubbish has benefitted from the Dispossessed Fund, launched by the Evening Standard campaign against food waste and managed by Food for London. We have been working with young people from refugee, migrant and low income backgrounds to give them cooking skills and redistribute fresh produce from the retail sector. Some of the kids have been ambivalent, some grateful but one thing is clear: they don’t want to be told what to eat and by extension what members of their families should be cooking, so some of the food has been rejected on those grounds. The aim of the programmes is to introduce new ingredients as well as skills to the young people and parents are usually delighted when they see their chicken and chips loving offspring eating fruit and vegetables but it has highlighted the paternalism of food redistribution. However you dress it up, people have less choice if they are being given food rejected by supermarket shoppers.

For many people, including beneficiaries of the Edible Enterprise programme, it is all very well to give them nourishing food but they lack adequate kitchen facilities to prepare it or, as Martin Caraher identified during research as a Professor of food and health policy at City University, families often lack the funds to pay for gas and electric to prepare food.

Image: Sierra Soleimani

Nobody will argue against filling the bellies of hungry children with nourishing food but there is nothing ‘simple’ about the causes and effects of food waste. A system predicated on surplus where huge supermarkets have densely stocked shelves for 24 hours a day – so those who can, will be able to purchase almost any food from any part of the planet on a whim – is unsustainable. Indeed, it flies in the face of basic social justice while many people are struggling to meet their nutritional needs and that of their children. However, rejoicing in the certainty they can rely on retail surplus presented as charity is mad as much as it is maddening. The environmentally catastrophic overproduction involved in sustaining this broken food system is maddening too. And above all calling the answer simple is dangerous.

Our motto at This is Rubbish is: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”. This is why we are pleased that Emma Lewell-Buck MP’s Ten Minute Rule Bill on measuring the scale of food insecurity has passed the first reading in Parliament this week. The Felix Project can put its public reach and influence to back this bill as it enters its second reading – due to take place in February 2018 – and progress further toward becoming an Act of Parliament. Moreover, the Felix Project and the Evening Standard should do more to highlight the efforts of poverty action campaigns such as End Hunger UK working to address the root causes of poverty, such as unsustainably low wages and deep benefit cuts.

We cannot fix poverty and climate change on a meal by meal basis. TiR is calling for systemic change supported by environmental and socially just policies because carrying on business as usual will leave a devastating legacy for tomorrow’s children.

 

This is Rubbish needs a website facelift!

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It’s 2016, and we need a new look, and in particular a new website! It’s that time of year, where changes are made, and ambitions set for the future. Please join us in helping us achieve our goal, and helping us bring an end to industry food waste.

Who are we, and are we really rubbish? No, not really, but we do work with a lot of rubbish! We started as a group of friends really concerned and schocked by the amount of food being wasted by supermarkets. After launching at the first Feeding the 5000 event, our organisation developed rapidly. We do a lot of things to reduce industry food waste, but our main aim is to reduce industry level food waste in the UK, through policy change, education, the arts and public events.

We operate across two main areas; campaigning for supply chain policy change and an outreach education program. We use different methods of engagement and we have succesfully run creative and arts based events, participatory workshops and stunts.

To start this year with a bang, we are trying to raise money to revamp our website which we started in 2009 when we were a fledgling organisation using a wordpress template. The website is now corrupting, vulnerable to hackers – as we unfortunately discovered – and needs a vital overhaul. Donations of any amount would be greatly appreciated to help us reach our target.

As you can imagine, a functioning website is vital for an organisation to grow and so we hope you will help us meet (or exceed our target). Your generosity will be rewarded with the following unbelievable prizes, depending on how much you pledge. Hurry – limited stocks available, and we are sure lots of people will want the holiday in a skip!

Stop The Rot: Lifting the Lid on Industry Food Waste @ Parliament on 6th July 2015

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This is Rubbish present Stop the Rot; lifting the lid on industry food waste

This is Rubbish’s latest campaign Stop The Rot: Lifting the Lid on Industry Food Waste made its first public appearance at the Houses of Parliament on Monday, 6th July. During an afternoon roundtable, representatives from across the food waste civil society, NGO and academic world met to discuss and help refine the campaign’s aims and objectives. The roundtable provided the perfect opportunity to scope out potential endorsers and campaign partners who share a vision of calling for 1) whole supply chain food waste measurement, led by ambitious reduction targets including pre-factory gate food waste, and 2) obligations for those responsible for food waste (revealed by auditing causes) to be involved in measures to reduce it.

 

Discussions explored: if the CC2025 is an effective driver in reducing food industry supply chain food waste; potential methodology for a food waste audit; planned campaign timeframes; the potential of supermarkets adopting a food waste audit / reduction / publishing scoring system / league table; and wider potential risks and barriers involving retailer buy-in and involvement.

 

During a Creative Communications and Possible Partnership breakout session, participants were asked to share creative strategy ideas for engaging with, and communicating to, the media and public about Stop The Rot campaign asks, via nationwide stunts and participatory open source campaigning. They discussed how, and in what capacity potential partnership could manifest over the next year.

The This Is Rubbish team were delighted to have such a high turnout and feel inspired and excited to take Stop The Rot into its next stages of development. If you would like to get involved, please get in touch. info@thisisrubbish.org.uk

 

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