Author Archives: Ben Parks

Trash-tudo, anyone?

A “canstruction” project spearheaded by a first-year sustainable agriculture major resulted in this model of Testudo, UMD’s iconic mascot, made entirely out of canned food. The statue is visually appealing, but more importantly, it draws attention to the UMD Campus Pantry.

What do you think, Scholars? Our challenge to you this spring semester: come up with a similarly designed Trash-tudo. Maybe it can connect to a charity, too? And be displayed prominently on campus or in the Cambridge Community? One google image search for “trash art” will give you plenty of ideas.

UMD student’s canned-food Testudo statue will help out Campus Pantry [Diamondback]

John Oliver on Food Waste

You probably already know that Americans waste too much food.  This summer, comedian and political commentator John Oliver broke down why the problem is much worse than you may realize – and he offered some practical solutions for what to do about it.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, as much as 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. never gets eaten and Americans throw away $165 billion worth of food every year, roughly 20 pounds per person every month. That’s enough waste to annually fill 730 football stadiums.

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