A student organization is tackling two of the world’s biggest threats: hunger and climate change.
The Illinois State University Food Recovery Network (FRN) chapter collected the most leftovers in the nation in 2020 to provide those in need with meals.
ISU FRN members are the ones who put the lids on the food and load it up in their cars and take it directly to Home Sweet Home Ministries from ISU’s dining halls. ISU Catering Chef Phil Cade said the leftovers collected even went to some Bloomington-Normal families through lunch programs that help schools like Thomas Metcalf.
“Through our lunch programs that serve the University High School and Metcalf, we know that there's a lot of families that even go to those schools that struggle with food security. I just think every little bit helps,” said Cade.
The FRN goes to ISU dining centers and collects unused products. Cade said the product taken from the centers is never on a buffet line or near customers.
Cade said the FRN and ISU dining services have been working together for about seven years. ISU’s FRN was recognized nationally and was announced the “Top Food Recover-er” for 2020.
“We opened up a to-go dining center here at the Bone Student Center and at the very beginning (of the pandemic), we didn't really know how many people were going to come in. So, we were ordering a lot of food and prepping a lot of food and then the meal plans for the dining center dropped. So they weren’t in need of items because at the beginning of the pandemic, the numbers just dropped,” said Cade. “It was a way to use up the product without throwing it away, throwing it in a landfill and rather taking care of people in need.”
Avoiding landfills
Not only did the leftovers make it to families, but over 2,500 pounds of food was diverted from landfills. That saved nearly 9,000 pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
“Here at ISU, we have pulpers and extractors. What we have on campus is ... a compost system that takes eight pounds of food and sucks all the water out and basically makes it into one pound of food that is then used for compost,” said Cade.
Elisabeth Reed, director of ISU’s Office of Sustainability, worked closely with the FRN and dining services on campus to come up with greener solutions.
Reed said food waste can take up to 40% of the space at landfills.
“Since some might find it hard to relate to CO2 emissions. I think it’s important to focus or share the fact that food does not break down properly in landfill. As an example, it can take up to 20 years for a head of lettuce to break down in a landfill,” said Reed. “By design, a landfill is not an environment in which itemsbiodegrade.”
The EPA has created a “Food Recovery Hierarchy” that FRN and the Office of Sustainability try to follow at ISU.
“While we compost a considerable amount of food waste at ISU, the work the FRN is doing is also a critical part of the equation,” said Reed. “You will see that the work the FRN is doing fits with this hierarchy and is so valuable. The food hierarchy tells us to first use the food to feed hungry people, which is what the FRN is all about.”
Currently, ISU works with a commercial compost facility in Peoria calledBetter Earth.
Reed said Better Earth hauls a large amount of ISU food waste, and soon will take a good portion of ISU compostable products, such as the bowls you might find at Star Ginger in the Bone, or the takeout containers at ISU dining centers.
Cade said getting all takeout containers on campus to be compostable is the next move, but something even bigger is how to dispose of those containers.
“Just because something's biodegradable doesn't mean you can just throw it in a plastic garbage bag. Then it goes to the landfill all tied up,” said Cade. “You have to have air that can reach the biodegradable products.”
Compostable is different from biodegradable. Reed said the primary difference between compostable and biodegradable is that compostable products require specific “ingredients” in the soil or land in order to break down, whereas biodegradable products break down naturally—just in a much longer period of time.
“Typically composting is a faster process so a better alternative. We are transitioning to more compostable containers versus single-use plastics so that we are not purchasing products made fromfossil fuels, and we can compost them and turn them back into soil,” said Reed.
The Food Recovery Network as a whole has over 140 participating campuses, and since its founding has recovered over 4.9 million pounds of food and reallocated it to those without food security.
The co-president and co-founder of the ISU chapter of FRN Elizabeth Gilmore said there are about 90 members.
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