11/12/23
This year, my proposed project idea is to prevent food waste by researching and observing ways that food is wasted and using that information to come up with ways to prevent food waste both at SHC and in San Francisco. The problem of food waste is currently enormously overlooked, despite the enormous impacts it has. Every year, nearly 40% of food in America is wasted. That’s not only a waste of food that could feed millions of hungry people, but a waste of money and resources. If someone throws away a hamburger, they’re not only throwing away the burger but the water and cattle food used to raise the cattle, the gasoline and electricity used to transport it, all the effort people have put in to do all of that and cook it, and likely even plastic packaging that just contributes to pollution. In summary, this single problem contributes to world hunger, poverty, and climate change. I came up for my idea when I first learned about this problem in a Vox video. In the video, they showed a device in the MIT cafeteria where people can drop off food and take a picture, and the device will send the picture out so that anyone who wants it can come and get some for free. I want to do something similar that meets the slightly different needs of the SHC community. Right now, the biggest challenge I’m facing is exactly what I’m going to do, but I’m currently researching different methods I could use and ways I could use technology and possibly AI to address the issue.