Calling all food waste warriors in high schools and universities worldwide – fight food waste and compete for thousands of dollars of prizes! Your challenge: uncover how much food gets wasted in your schools, organize a team and take action to reduce food waste!
How to participate?
Start by investigating about the problem – how much food gets wasted in your school? Then explore the solutions. What if the cafeteria went trayless? What if they offered an option of smaller portions? What if everyone that brought their own food to school became more mindful of how much they are able to eat? What if there is a way to redistribute the perfectly edible food to other charities?
Creating an awareness raising campaign can also help make a huge difference. Make a movie, take photos, spread the word through your and your school’s social networks using the hashtag #ThinkEatSave! Learn what other food waste warriors are doing everywhere else in the world.
Whatever you do, make it creative, fun and, of course, effective. #THINKEATSAVE wants to see the results in your school and behavior changes among the students. They need you to tell them your story!
Feeling inspired? Sign up now for the Challenge! Then get your team together and start working on your game plan.
Remember, you need to let them know about the details and results of your project before 16 November.
Why
It’s been a while now since they started telling you about the outrageous amount of food that is wasted or lost across the world. They don’t want to be annoying but some things need to be said and repeated: ONE THIRD of all the food produced worldwide is WASTED.
Check out your pantry or your fridge and imagine just throwing away one third of all the food that is in there. Imagine throwing away one third of the food in your shopping cart after paying for it. Or picture all those lunch trays at your school and imagine one third of them being WASTED.
Hard to believe, huh? But it is a fact. A shocking one. Food waste is a massive global problem that has negative humanitarian, environmental and financial implications and schools are a huge part of this story. In England, schools throw out some 123,000 tonnes of food a year, costing around £250 million a year. If you’re an American student, you are responsible for 67 pounds of discarded lunch waste every school year. On campuses in Los Angeles – unified, the second-largest school system in the US -, students throw out at least $100,000 worth of food a day.
Where
You are challenged to start in your schools. FIND OUT how much food is wasted in your cafeterias. TAKE ACTION by launching a team project that will prevent or reduce food waste. RAISE AWARENESS among students and teachers to stop wasting food! SPREAD THE WORD to all your friends on your social media networks.
If you have a science project requirement, why not make it this one? Make it big, engage your friends, take action and tell us the results! If we choose your project, your team or school will receive a cash prize to further support your initiative. And we will also show the whole world what you’ve done.
Feeling inspired? Register your pledge, roll up your sleeves and get to work!
The prize
Three winning projects will be selected based on:
Creativity – what new ideas and approaches were employed by the students in addressing the issue of food waste (30%)
Effectiveness – what results were accomplished e.g. how much food waste was reduced or what measures were adopted by the school to reduce food waste, and what plans are there to ensure the longevity of these reductions/new ideas (40%)
Reach – what was the level of interest and support generated; how many students participated in the activities? Were teachers, cafeteria staff, parents and families actively engaged? How much social media engagement was employed (30%)
1st Prize – US $5,000
2nd Prize – US $3,000
3rd Prize – US $2,000
Entries can be submitted in any of the six UN official languages – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
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