By Mickey Friedman
May 6, 2018
I learned about the pride of the poor from my parents who grew up with nothing. It was understood I would work as soon as I could legally find a job, to do my part.
My first job in the Berkshires was with South Berkshire Community Action. And when I organized food cooperatives and community gardens, I found similar pride amongst the rural poor.
If you think you’re not living amongst the poor in the Southern Berkshires, it’s because you’re not really looking.
If you think there aren’t hungry children here, it’s because they. like their parents, are proud and silent. I never shared what a burden it placed upon me and my parents to make sure that the only white shirt I had was clean enough to attend those stupid weekly assemblies at public school.
People are working hard to ban plastic water bottles in Great Barrington and, yes I care about that tortoise with the plastic straw in his nostril and those beaches with discarded bottles and that plastic island in the sea. But I know these bottles can be recycled. Just like the plastic shopping bags we banned. Yes, it takes work to recycle but Omaha Nebraska has managed a comprehensive plastics recycling program: http://firststarrecycling.com/recycle-guide/
The people of Omaha Nebraska know and do: “Plastic bottles can be recycled by placing them in your curbside recycling or by taking them to one of our drop off sites … many soft plastics that were previously discarded can now be consolidated in Hefty® EnergyBags™ and converted into energy to produce cement, rather than ending up in a landfill.”
Let’s say no to the next aircraft carrier and employ out-of-work Americans to clean up plastic from our beaches and roadsides.
I prefer re-use than making it impossible for perfectly reasonable but busy people to conveniently purchase, use, and then recycle plastic water bottles – parents with cranky, thirsty, kids – hikers who emerge tired from the Trail. Or denying a substantial amount of income to the many small merchants who will now be forced to say no and provide explanations to customers who are more interested in drinking water than engaging in an argument.
An engaged citizenry and public officials can figure out a way to provide a viable plastics recycling program – perhaps even investing with, or finding grant monies along with other South Berkshire towns to create such a local facility. When plastic bottles are recycled, they can be made into t-shirts, sweaters, fleece jackets, insulation for jackets and sleeping bags, carpeting and more bottles. Recycled plastic bags can become plastic lumber for park benches, backyard decks and fences – even playground equipment for kids. How about a deposit to encourage re-use?
As for bans, I suggest addressing an even more pressing matter: how about we enact a simple ban on throwing out food. Right now, supermarkets are throwing out massive amounts of fruits and vegetables, cereals, meats, seafood and dairy products into dumpsters.
I say more pressing for two reasons. While it is estimated that plastics make up 12% of the U.S. municipal waste stream, EPA estimates that 21.4% of U.S. municipal solid waste is food. To put it simply, wasted food is the single largest component going into municipal landfills
And Americans waste between 30-40 percent of our food supply.
There is a simple solution. A solution recently adopted when the French Assembly unanimously passed a law that not only requires supermarkets not to destroy unsold food products but to donate that food to charities and food banks or to local farms to be used as animal feed or compost.
There are still problems ensuring that supermarkets distribute more than just a small proportion of their unsold food. And, yes, participating charities are in dire need of better redistribution services. There are transportation challenges to make sure food can be collected and delivered at the right times. And there’s the need for refrigeration. All of which come at a cost.
But there are incredibly compelling reasons to confront and solve these challenges. In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 775,079 individuals participate in SNAP (the former food stamp program), receiving monthly benefits of $129.93. Monthly family benefits are $262.72. About half of all households receiving SNAP benefits have at least one child under the age of 18. About 16% of participating households have at least one elderly member age 60 or older. As of 2014, there were 17,633 Berkshire County residents participating.
Right now, one in five of Berkshire children aren’t getting enough food to eat.
For those merchants worried about getting sued, there’s the federal Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. Which protects them when they donate food to non-profits; and protects them from civil and criminal liability if the food they donate in good faith causes harm to a recipient.
Let’s ban food waste. Let’s make sure we feed the people.
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“Feed The People” was first published in the April 26, 2018 edition of The Berkshire Record.