Our excrement is a natural, renewable and sustainable resource – if only we can overcome our visceral disgust of it

The story of separation can be vividly seen in the human-nature divide. Treating the environment as a resource that should be used for the benefit of humankind has ultimately led to its abuse and destruction. Today, the world economy has become the ‘end,’ and nature and humans have become the ‘means,’ the resources for the economy. Believing oursel

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Sustainability + Human DevelopmentIs the food we eat scalable, sustainable, healthy, nutritious and tasty? Is the air we breathe clean?Is the water we drink pure?Is there a way to produce energy that is relatively abundant, cheap and clean?Is there a way to reverse or mitigate climate change?Can we create a livable habitat on another planet?Can we ... See more

Much like paper straws or canvas totes, though, well-meaning small changes miss the forest of structural change for the trees of lifestyle tweaking. The object of thrown-away food bears scrutiny, even though it is the way we dispose of food — mostly dumping it in landfills — that generates methane emissions. Large-scale composting or biogas generat... See more

Food waste is frequently articulated as an environmental crisis, a claim that rests on two arguments. The first is clearly climate-oriented: When food waste ends up in a landfill, it rots and produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas that warms the planet. In this argument, households are largely to blame, and the solutions put forward to address h... See more

It might be prudent, they say, to redirect some resources we use to feed livestock, such as cereal crops and fish suitable for human consumption, back into our food supply pool. The team believes those animals could instead chow down on certain food byproducts humans would typically throw away. Things like sugar beet, citrus pulp and crop residues.... See more

The carbon footprint of US food waste is bigger than the airline industry’s (source), and more than a third of that food waste is produced in our homes. We are poor inventory managers when we do groceries in bulk: we ambitiously buy ingredients that we don’t cook, fruits start to mold by mid-week, forgotten purchases zombie in the freezer for a yea... See more