What a Waste

As an American, I appear to have a love/hate relationship with waste.  I probably waste more time/money/goods than I think, but I hate it when I recognize it.  Particularly problematic for me is food waste.  This is probably what leads to my consistent overeating--the immense guilt I feel at throwing away valuable, perfectly good food.

Much to my chagrin, I experienced a glaring example of waste at work today.  When I entered the lunchroom this morning to make some coffee, the vending machine man was restocking.  I smiled, turned to make my coffee, and thought nothing of it.  While I waited for my java, I looked around the room, and just happened to glance into the giant garbage can right below the coffee makers.  It looked like a large number of used individual chip bags, so I figured maybe some department had to stay late the previous night and had ordered sandwiches and chips for the employees. 

Those Cheetos were calling to me.

But then I realized the bags were full.  Having not had my morning coffee yet, it took a while for the gears to start turning, but I figured out that the vending machine man had thrown out all these bags, probably because they had "expired."  If I were in a more lucid state of mind at 7:15am, perhaps after a cup of coffee, I probably would have inquired as to why the man threw out all of those instead of giving them away, or some other less wasteful alternative.

I thought about it at my desk a lot when I should have been doing work.  My conclusion was that if he left them out for our employees to enjoy, nobody would ever end up buying from that machine--they would just wait until switch out day and grab the free goodies.  But why not instead take them somewhere offsite to sell for discounted prices, or even donate them to food banks?  At the very least, hand out the perfectly good snacks to the swarms of homeless people who loiter in the Union Station area just one block away.

Still shirking actual work, I proceeded to surf the web to find out what kinds of rules might prohibit a vendor from giving away expired goods.  I consider this one of my most fruitful learning experiences in some time, because what I found truly surprised me: there is no federally required dating for foods, except for baby formula and some baby foods.  Do note though, that 20 states require some sort of food labeling.

That baffled me, considering the plethora of foods and beverages sporting dates.  Reading further, the USDA website explained that there's confusion as to the meanings of labels, due to the wide variety found on consumable products.  Think of all the different variations of expiration dates: "Use by", "Freshest if used by", "Sell by", and "Best by" just to name a few.  Each of these non-regulated phrases means something different in the food industry.  The words also mean different things to different consumers.  In theory, that could render all the dates we see on packaging as arbitrary.  The one thing that's widely agreed on though, is that nearly all goods can still be consumed after their magical dates.

This made me want to check out what the bags of munchies the vending machine man threw out had printed on them.  I mean, c'mon, that processed stuff could possibly withstand the nuclear holocaust.  Do you mean to tell me that Cheetos should be tossed out as readily as spoiled milk? (I chose to single out Cheetos because it's my one true junk food weakness, so I have to consciously avoid having them in my house.  Plus, I saw them most prominently in the trash and had to fight the urge to snatch up all the bags and devour them.)

Having that not-so-fresh feeling.

A coworker grabbed the discarded snacks when I told him about what I saw, so I looked at a bag.   I laughed when I noticed that sure enough, the date was not actually an "expiration", but rather a "guaranteed fresh by."  So that means potentially thousands of bags of these snacks are tossed every day because they are no longer "guaranteed fresh"?  What makes these preservative-laden, still-perfectly-fresh munchies suddenly non-edible overnight?  And back to the original question:  why did the vendor throw them out instead of donating them?

I figured there might be some law preventing donations of expired items, so I investigated further.  It turns out, not only is there not such a federal law, there is a federal law (The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act) encouraging donations.  In fact, one portion of the EPA website lists among the reasons for food donation by vendors "expired coupons or code dates," later explaining that the Good Samaritan Act also protects vendors from much liability if one of their donated goods later sickens someone.  So with the protections and tax benefits, donation would seem like a no-brainer, right?  Again, the regulations vary by state.  However, I was hard-pressed to find states which outright banned the donation of foods which had passed a recommended expiration date. 

I know it's not always easy to read all the legal-eze involved in the donation process, particularly in a touchy area such as food or products that could affect a person's health.  But personally, if I owned a business I would do everything in my power to ensure I was reducing my waste by finding legal means to donate products instead of discarding them.  To me, it would be worth all the time and effort.  I also know that, to a certain extent, the American way often involves taking the easy way out.  I would love to see more businesses and vendors bucking this unfortunate American trend, and working to help the less fortunate, while cutting down on landfill clutter at the same time.

Let me know what you think in my poll on the left.  If you have other views or alternative ideas for what can be done about these wasteful situations, leave them in my comments section below this post.

Update: 7 people voted in the poll.  5 said the company should have donated the snacks, 1 believed the snacks should be thrown out, and 1 "other" vote did not specify what to do with the snacks.  Thanks for voting!