Reduce! Re-use! Recycle, Reclaim! That’s Amy Farnum’s Mantra
Staggering Price Tag Assigned to Food Waste
Would you believe that one-third of the food produced worldwide goes to waste each year? According to Boston Consulting Group, that’s the case, and it could reach 2.1 billion metric tons worth $1.5 trillion by 2030.
Andrew Shakman saw that measuring the leftover unprepared food waste in commercial kitchens is one effective approach in preventing food waste. To that end, he founded Leanpath, a waste prevention system that combines hardware, software and behavioral education.
Shakman believes waste happens because people don’t want to run out of food, so his company aims to drive cultural change by educating and engaging frontline workers.
Two notable subscribers to the Leanpath system are Sodexo and Google. Leanpath has helped Google save over 4 million pounds of food waste in corporate dining; and across 300 sites in different countries and market segments, Sodexo was able to trim food waste in half and generate $6 for every $1 it spent on Leanpath’s services within one year. You can read the complete article about Food Waste here.
A Place Where Past, Present and Future Meet
We had the opportunity to get a sneak peek at the newly installed Rooftop Photvoltaic System (in plain speak: solar panels) on the expanded State Archives and Records building at 9 Ratification Way in Concord. The folks in our group had the treat of climbing a ladder up to the rooftop to get a very close look at the panels, even though they were snow-covered a the time and had not yet gone “live.” The panels are laid out in rows and ready to absorb the energy that emits from the sun.
Solar power is measured in Kilowatts (kW). The initial purchase of panels allowed for a 45 kW system. Through funding from an Energy Saving Performance Contract, the project was increased to a 60 kW system. An additional 6.6 kW was added by way of repurposing panels originally intended for the NH DMV headquarters, but not used there for safety concerns. Rather than discard those panels, they were re-purposed across town at the State Archives and Records building – waste not, want not!
At the time we toured, the panels had not yet been “switched” on. We’ll check back in and let you know when that takes place.
Meanwhile, there’s more to tell about this interesting newly enlarged building. Things are now all in place, but the nearly 80,000 boxes of records from all of the state’s various agencies and divisions will not be unpacked until someone wants to see their contents. According to State Archivist, Brian Nelson Burford, visitors come daily who are researching various topics – primarily records having to do with their ancestry. They sit in the large research library and pore over the treasured documents, which must be kept varying lengths of time according to law and guidelines. Continue reading “A Place Where Past, Present and Future Meet”