On June 5, we’ll celebrate World Environment Day. This year UNEP focuses on the theme Food waste/Food Loss. At Raxa Collective we’ll be carrying out actions and sharing experience and ideas. Come and join us with your ideas and tips to preserve foods, preserve resources and preserve our planet.

Recently when thinking about the universal recycling symbol it occurred to me that many of our expectations on how basic human needs are met can be influenced by the three concepts of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

We see numerous examples in the design world, from architecture to consumer goods, that put these concepts into use.  But we can also go out on a limb and consider food as an important and increasingly necessary arena as well.

Of course I don’t mean recycling literally in this case, but I do refer to the huge amount of food waste that occurs daily in restaurants, events and even in our home kitchens.

Meg Chatham and I have already written about the varied programs that help to distribute the overflow of prepared food to shelters and food banks.  But what about reducing the amount of food prepared to begin with, as well as closing the loop of resources used in Restaurants?  Possible?  Absolutely!

(For more updated information about “Recycled Restaurants”, go here.)

This was originally posted on AUGUST 21, 2011