Wasteful practices that bug you

I feel the same as most of you who have posted here about bottled water, styrofoam cups, all the throw away stuff that our society so eagerly embraces. But, I think the ONE thing that always makes really sad is the waste or food that could be given to the homeless, to shelters etc. but because of rules and regulations must be throw away. I am thinking in particular of places that serve "family style" and will bring large bowls of food to the table. There is usually just DH and myself, so of course we are not going to eat bowls of food! I was in the rest room later when one of the servers came in and I asked her about it thinking maybe the servers got to take home some leftovers. (take out boxes are allowed at this place I think). She said "no, we have to throw it all away". I know there are rules but good food, taken out with a clean spoon, has to be throw in the trash? That bothers me when I know there are hungry people that it would be a feast for. This was a fairly pricey restaurant at an historic restored shaker village and they are known for their good food, but why not serve LESS of it and bring one more serving if a person requires it? Too wasteful Makes me sad. :(

I agree, SEL--I did some volunteer work at a homeless shelter in NYC and one of the reasons that I will always go to the healthy grab-and-go store, Pret A Manger in NYC, is because they donate all their expired food to the shelter. Not sure why other companies don't take the time to find the loopholes that permit doing the same.

Years ago, in a small nearby town, I worked in the kitchen of a restaurant. The plates coming into the kitchen after a meal were scraped into a trash can. At the end of the night we could take home that bag of scraps for our chickens and compost.

Our nearest grocery store will sell us ripe produce for a discount. I was surprised they could do this. I'm not slipping in and out the back door, I go right through the checkout line with a heaping box of food with a price written on the side. Nothing is weighted, no produce codes to punch in. Anything that is past eat-ability, goes to compost. It's a win-win-win! The grocer gets some money for what is a few days from the trash bin, we get to try a variety of produce that I probably wouldn't have bought, and our compost piles are thriving!

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Originally Posted by Sad Eyed Lady

But, I think the ONE thing that always makes really sad is the waste or food that could be given to the homeless, to shelters etc. but because of rules and regulations must be throw away.

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This ^...

Many years ago, I took my leftovers from dinner in a takeout box. As we were driving, we had a change of plans and were not going directly home to refrigerate my food. I directed dh to drive by the "known homeless area" and I gifted my meal to someone. Now, I regularly take what is left and give to those same people - on purpose, and with no intention of taking my leftovers home for me, but the restaurant is just going to throw it in the garbage.

Other waste - watering for a green lawn, not using the last of a bottle of something - I put one bottle upside down on top of the other and drain every last drip, what I term the cheapening of produced products - it's like they want stuff to fail in a short time so one must buy a new one instead of the "old-fashioned" quality of lasting a lifetime.

The local grocery store gives day old or bruised (sometimes perfect)produce and bakery items to the local senior center. People line up to take what they want. It is amazing the "stuff" they would have thrown out that is perfectly edible. Today they also had organic milk and eggs that were a few days away from expiration .... for free. I frequent this grocery store more than I did in the past based on this generosity. I don't know why more places don't do this????

And then some hungry people eat that food out of the dumpster. Nothing solved, nothing prevented by the restaurant. Pathetic.

It is heart-breaking how much food gets wasted on a daily basis at my job - only pre-packaged items can go to the food bank. The items taken off the hot bar after their allotted time are spoiled out. I do tend to do a lot of one bite snacking at work before it gets tossed. Yep, my waistline is starting to show it too...but it is hard to see perfectly good food go to waste.

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He doesn't eat half of what he grows.

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I walk a lot in my neighborhood and am confounded by all the food I see growing that never gets eaten. There is one house on a corner with multiple raised beds full of cabbages, broccoli, and greens and not one bit of it has been picked. It is as if the garden in your front yard is more of a look how trendy I am thing rather than growing it to actually eat. Our city just moved to recycling or composting literally everything. They sent a guide today that will take a bit of time to go through as there is much to learn but glad they are at least attempting it.

Different food shelves have different rules, usually brought on by different capabilities. Our regional food bank has standing agreements with many local supermarkets and restaurants to accept prepared food that has not been served; they can take it hot or cold and keep it safe to eat until it is redistributed to homeless shelters, etc., within a few hours. But that depends on having trucks which can keep the food at the right temperature and on a large-enough client base to actually justify the expense of the trucks and staff and deliveries. Once food has been served, it cannot be re-served -- you just never know when someone who is sick (and may not know it) or is sick (in-the-head sick) could contaminate the food.

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Originally Posted by lmerullo

not using the last of a bottle of something - I put one bottle upside down on top of the other and drain every last drip

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I do this, too. I was amazed to find how much was left inside a bottle of skin moisturizer.

One would think that the people who sell the plastic jug could find a material for the bottle which did not cling to the moisturizer so well. But then one thinks that a) this is not the packaging company's problem; b) the moisturizer company likes it, too, because they sell more product; and c) neither one of them pays for the disposal of not-quite-empty bottles of moisturizer anyway, so why do they care?

I use a utility knife to cut open bottles of lotion so I can get every last bit - sometimes I have eked out three more days worth of body lotion clinging to the sides by doing this!

SiouzQ, I do the same - I have been known to use a chopstick to eke out the last of a moisturizer and put it in a small container and use until gone.

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Originally Posted by chrissieq

SiouzQ, I do the same - I have been known to use a chopstick to eke out the last of a moisturizer and put it in a small container and use until gone.

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Did you guys ever see the Shark Tank episode where the woman invented a teeny, tiny spatula called the Spatty, designed to eke out the last bits of stuff inside make-up bottles? She got a deal with the Sharks.

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Originally Posted by SiouzQ.

I use a utility knife to cut open bottles of lotion so I can get every last bit - sometimes I have eked out three more days worth of body lotion clinging to the sides by doing this!

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yup, i save up about 6 cetaphil bottles and when my wife is low on her last one i cut them all open and scrape with a silicone scraper and fill one up, usually almost half way.

I've done the bottle-upside-down thing and cut them open, too. Darned if I'm buying into that little game! :)

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Originally Posted by pinkytoe

I walk a lot in my neighborhood and am confounded by all the food I see growing that never gets eaten. There is one house on a corner with multiple raised beds full of cabbages, broccoli, and greens and not one bit of it has been picked. It is as if the garden in your front yard is more of a look how trendy I am thing rather than growing it to actually eat. Our city just moved to recycling or composting literally everything. They sent a guide today that will take a bit of time to go through as there is much to learn but glad they are at least attempting it.

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Last year at the end of summer I went with one of my neighbors to the compost site. There were whole plants pulled from the roots with the vegetables still on them that people had brought to the site. We took boxes and I picked many tomatoes, took them home and cleaned them, put in the basement and had tomatoes until Thanksgiving. She had squash (not my favorite) and other vegetables. Was quite astonishing that people did not give these vegetables away rather than throwing them in the compost.

I'm loving these responses!

Here's another one.. I have some family members who shall remain nameless who have all the accoutrements of coffee-making--french press, drip filter, Keurig machine, etc., etc. Yet every morning they get in their cars and drive a quarter of a mile to the local convenience store to buy their morning coffee.

I don't get that at all! What a waste of time, money, gas, and the cups are disposable styrofoam.

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Originally Posted by catherine

I have some family members who shall remain nameless who have all the accoutrements of coffee-making--french press, drip filter, Keurig machine, etc., etc. Yet every morning they get in their cars and drive a quarter of a mile to the local convenience store to buy their morning coffee.

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Do these folks also have big beautiful kitchens in which they never cook? :)

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Originally Posted by frugal-one

There were whole plants pulled from the roots with the vegetables still on them that people had brought to the site. We took boxes and I picked many tomatoes, took them home and cleaned them, put in the basement and had tomatoes until Thanksgiving.

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A friend of mine rents some of his farmland to growers who then take their produce to the local farmer's market. I was there at harvest time last year while he was collecting bushels of tomatoes which were dented or spotted or otherwise deemed imperfect enough to sell at the market. Even after the bad parts were peeled away, there was enough to make cases of tomato juice and spaghetti sauce. But if he were not willing to put in the couple of days work involved in gathering, grinding, boiling, and canning, what would have happened to that produce? It's not like he lives along some well-traveled road where he could just put up a sign marked "Free". Not to defend the waste, but I can see how it can happen. Would that there were better ways to gather those gleanings....

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Originally Posted by SteveinMN

Do these folks also have big beautiful kitchens in which they never cook? :)

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Years ago, I cleaned houses with this description. It was incredible. One in particular was inhabited by a model, who was painfully thin and blonde. She never even had food in the kitchen... Which I suppose is a job requirement. Ugh. It shocked me as being shamefully wasteful, to own a place that is all show and no utility.

We used to glean cauliflowers heads for our sheep! It's one of the funniest sights, to see sheep trying to chew down on heads of cauliflower, rolling along on the ground. Round white wooly beasts chasing round white veggies. They loved the cauli.

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Originally Posted by redfox

We used to glean cauliflowers heads for our sheep! It's one of the funniest sights, to see sheep trying to chew down on heads of cauliflower, rolling along on the ground. Round white wooly beasts chasing round white veggies. They loved the cauli.

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I love that image, redfox! thank you for the smile this grey day.

Nuclear waste, right now down in Southeastern NM, where a lot stored.

Because I fly a lot, I am a member of the "Presidential Plus" airline club. That puts me into a demographic that often represents things that are at odds with my own values..

So I get this big, shiny royal blue, expensive bubble pack in the mail the other day. It weighed a couple of pounds and it was thick. Inside was a book the size of a small coffee table book, with slick high quality pages. And the equally slick cover letter, signed by the SVP of Marketing and Loyalty, said "it is our pleasure to present you with the 2014 edition of The Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection Directory.

Really? Don't people have the internet? I don't even get telephone books anymore. This was a huge waste of time, paper, and shipping. It's going right into the recycling. What a waste.

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Originally Posted by catherine

Because I fly a lot, I am a member of the "Presidential Plus" airline club. That puts me into a demographic that often represents things that are at odds with my own values..

So I get this big, shiny royal blue, expensive bubble pack in the mail the other day. It weighed a couple of pounds and it was thick. Inside was a book the size of a small coffee table book, with slick high quality pages. And the equally slick cover letter, signed by the SVP of Marketing and Loyalty, said "it is our pleasure to present you with the 2014 edition of The Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection Directory.

Really? Don't people have the internet? I don't even get telephone books anymore. This was a huge waste of time, paper, and shipping. It's going right into the recycling. What a waste.

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That is just silly. Whose brother-in-law at that company owns the printing house?

resign from the airline club?

Apart from wasting time ( and I am guilty of that a lot ) what really annoys me is bottled water and disposable paper everything. There exist re-usable cloth alternatives which worked for hunreds of years and I don't see any reason why not to use them nowadays. Sure, I do use toilet paper. But why waste paper towels when we have dishcloths, wipe your mouth with a paper napkin when a serviette even feels better? And I have never heard of anyone dying for using handkerchiefs instead of uncountable boxes of tissues.

Maybe it's the common practice of using car when 'going' shopping that encourages this behaviour. I guess a lot of people would think twice before drinking bottled water when their tap water is perfectly fine and using piles and piles of paper napkins, tissues and towels had they have to carry them home in their hands.


I am also amazed by people using clothes dryer which is becomming more and more common here. I feel it's not only huge waste of energy but the clothes that is regularly dired in a dryer don't last so long. Plus it smells much better when you let the clothes hang-dry.

I used to get upset by wasting food in households (well, I still do and I don't get it why some people refuse to eat left overs or freeze the extra portions for later) but not long ago I had opportunity to learn how much food is thrown away in restaurants and shops and it really terrifies me. They aren't even allowed to offer the food to be thrown away to the hungry and homeless people nor is it composted.


I live in a big city with a great infrastructure - great and inexpensive public transportation, sidewalks almost everywhere, parks, ... and yet there are thousands of people who use cars to get somewhere when they don't need to. I mean situations when a single person drives to a place easily reachable by tram or bus or even within walking distance. Like my DH driving the 500m to work even when it takes him longer to get the snow and ice off the window than it would take him to walk there and get some fresh air and exercise.


Well, it upsets me or to be more precise it makes me sad and worried but it's everybody's personal choice and I can't force anyone to change. We all just can do what we can leading by example.