City of Asheville Invites Residents to Participate in the AVL Food Waste Challenge

In March, Asheville City Council declared April to be Food Waste Reduction Month. You can help celebrate by participating in the #AVLFoodWasteChallenge!

Food waste reduction matters because up to 40% of food in the US is wasted, contributing to negative environmental, economic and societal impacts. Much of this food waste is preventable, making local and household level food waste reduction initiatives impactful and important in the effort to curb our waste, save our landfill space, and feed ourselves and our neighbors.

Food Waste Solutions WNC has organized a Home Food Waste Challenge so that you can learn and share ways to reduce food waste in your home. We can learn from each other as a community and raise awareness and enthusiasm around reducing food waste.

There are even some fun prizes involved! Check them out here.

Here is how you can participate:

Conduct a Home Food Waste Audit: Use this form.
Share your fave food waste hacks: Check out this cool recipe to repurpose last night’s leftovers for today’s lunch!
Spot the truck: Get a photo of one of our trucks sporting the new ‘Save the Food’ logo
Show us food waste reduction in action: Is a restaurant redistributing food? A neighbor feeding food scraps to their chickens or turning their compost? Take a pic — the City of Asheville wants to see!

Use hashtags!

Each time you complete an activity and post to social media including Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. Use these hashtags #AVLFoodWasteChallenge, #SavetheFoodAVL, #SavetheFoodWNC, #NRDCFoodMatters. Be sure to tag @wncfoodwaste so your posts are seen.

Ways to work food waste reduction into your world

Food waste reduction starts with smart shopping, creative use of left-overs, and careful fridge organizing so food doesn’t go to waste, but there will always be scraps, and food scraps = soil wealth! You can compost at home and in our community to recycle your food scraps into rich compost to benefit your garden and keep your scraps out of the landfill! Learn more about composting here and check out the free workshops below to get free bin building and kitchen tote materials to start composting today!