Poll of the Day > Do you agree with those nyc sanitation workers throwing out all that produce?

(+) Yeah! (+)

this story is making big news. iirc a big produce street vendor in nyc was found not to have a proper license and all of their produce was thrown into a garbage truck to waste.

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What could they legally do with it otherwise? It's kinda procedure. And where the guy doesn't have a permit, the food itself might not be safe.

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It's an unfortunate waste, but I don't see that there are really any other options. If they can't guarantee the safety of the food, they can't in good conscience give it to anyone else. In truth, lacking the necessary permits is probably more a matter of red tape than a genuine safety concern, but the law can't tell the difference.

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The sad fact of the matter is that they know all that food is good, but theyre so interested in profit and are so engrained in their belief that the poor should pay for their food that theyd rather throw it away than at least process it for pet food.

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No I dont agree with it, but it isnt their fault and they might not really have an alternative as employees or as a company.

Overall I think we allow a tremendous amount of food to simply rot, and I think we can start being smarter about some things to avoid a lot of that.

A lot of things need to change. This is a very long endeavor.

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If that is already concerning then you don't want to know how much super markets and other stores throw out every day.

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aHappySacka posted...

If that is already concerning then you don't want to know how much super markets and other stores throw out every day.

That too. This is, sadly, incredibly normal. Even worse, many of those supermarkets put up fences around their dumpsters and employ security guards to keep people from "stealing" the discarded food. I understand that there are liability concerns when it comes to giving people stuff that "should" be thrown out, but stopping people from voluntarily assuming that risk by taking food out of the dumpster is just plain evil levels of greed.

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adjl posted...

That too. This is, sadly, incredibly normal. Even worse, many of those supermarkets put up fences around their dumpsters and employ security guards to keep people from "stealing" the discarded food. I understand that there are liability concerns when it comes to giving people stuff that "should" be thrown out, but stopping people from voluntarily assuming that risk by taking food out of the dumpster is just plain evil levels of greed.

yeah good point. So you dudes think think if not as much food was thrown out, in the world, then there should be enough food for everyone on the planet so no one would ever go hungry?

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aHappySacka posted...

If that is already concerning then you don't want to know how much super markets and other stores throw out every day.

how much water they use every day too is staggering

last stat that I heard was that your average restaurant goes through about 18K gallons of clean water each day

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PK_Spam posted...

The sad fact of the matter is that they know all that food is good, but theyre so interested in profit and are so engrained in their belief that the poor should pay for their food that theyd rather throw it away than at least process it for pet food.

or, you know, the more obvious thing which is it could very well be unsafe for consumption..

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You know as well as I do thats not true.

They want you to pay an arbitrary amount of money to certify your food, and thats more important than actually making sure people eat.

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UT1999 posted...

yeah good point. So you dudes think think if not as much food was thrown out, in the world, then there should be enough food for everyone on the planet so no one would ever go hungry?

It's decidedly more complex than that, given the logistics of getting food to the people that need it (especially in more disadvantaged countries that lack the infrastructure and/or have too much political interference to distribute it), but there's really no reason for anyone to be going hungry in the US. Enough food is thrown out because of poor planning and a refusal to do anything that might compromise the profit margins of supermarkets (specifically, discarding anything that doesn't meet the necessary standard to be sold at full price, which is generally a much higher standard than is needed for safety) that fixing those issues would allow pretty much everyone in the country to eat well. But the prevailing attitude is that people who can't afford to buy nutritious food at full price doesn't deserve it, so these issues persist.

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This is standard practice.

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https://youtu.be/rvL6C0jprCw

PK_Spam posted...

You know as well as I do thats not true.

They want you to pay an arbitrary amount of money to certify your food, and thats more important than actually making sure people eat.

Actually, i do. Because unlike you i don;t make over emotional forum messages without knowing what the hell i'm talking about.

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aHappySacka posted...

If that is already concerning then you don't want to know how much super markets and other stores throw out every day.

The entire food economic system is built around the idea of waste.

adjl posted...

That too. This is, sadly, incredibly normal. Even worse, many of those supermarkets put up fences around their dumpsters and employ security guards to keep people from "stealing" the discarded food. I understand that there are liability concerns when it comes to giving people stuff that "should" be thrown out, but stopping people from voluntarily assuming that risk by taking food out of the dumpster is just plain evil levels of greed.

The problem there is that we live in an overly litigious society where doing something like potentially leaves a business open to liability. Even something like failing to enforce security around dumpsters can be argued in a court as a tacit policy of giving things away, and they could be held liable for not doing more to prevent it.

UT1999 posted...

yeah good point. So you dudes think think if not as much food was thrown out, in the world, then there should be enough food for everyone on the planet so no one would ever go hungry?

Technically no because most starvation issues have more to do with where the excess is vs where the starving people are. Most of the waste is in first-world countries where starving to death is a minimal concern, whereas most of the starvation deaths happen in nations with less waste. The problem of starvation is a lot bigger than what is or isn't thrown out.

PK_Spam posted...

You know as well as I do thats not true.

They want you to pay an arbitrary amount of money to certify your food, and thats more important than actually making sure people eat.

The things you *think* you know are true are just baffling. And keep in mind that most of that red tape is set up by the government itself

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adjl posted...

If they can't guarantee the safety of the food, they can't in good conscience give it to anyone else.

This.



adjl posted...

In truth, lacking the necessary permits is probably more a matter of red tape than a genuine safety concern, but the law can't tell the difference.

If you can't trust someone to get the proper legal permits, how can you trust them to faithfully adhere to all health and safety requirements?

If they've already shown a willingness to cut corners/flout their obligations, how can you ever assume they're not doing the same when it comes to more important things as well?

I might be biased, though. I have a friend who works for the DEP who's told me a few stories about just how criminally irresponsible businesses (both large and small) can be, even when it comes to public health issues. Like businesses that have issues where sewage is bleeding into "fresh" water lines and the business owner just wants to keep paying the fine for it rather than fixing it, because it's cheaper, regardless of whether or not it might be getting people sick.



PK_Spam posted...

theyd rather throw it away than at least process it for pet food.

If I don't trust food to be hygienic enough for me to eat, I sure as fuck don't want anyone processing it into food for my pets to eat either.

Not to mention that the time it would take to transport food from a place where it's confiscated to a place where it could be effectively processed would almost certainly result in it spoiling to some degree along the way, making it unusable anyway. The infrastructure for that simply doesn't exist at the moment.
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Kimbos_Egg posted...

Actually, i do. Because unlike you i don;t make over emotional forum messages without knowing what the hell i'm talking about.

Yeah you would know

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Zeus posted...

The problem there is that we live in an overly litigious society where doing something like potentially leaves a business open to liability. Even something like failing to enforce security around dumpsters can be argued in a court as a tacit policy of giving things away, and they could be held liable for not doing more to prevent it.

It's not that hard to sign the dumpster well enough to absolve them of liability if people get sick eating out of it, especially given how hard it is to pin down the source of any given instance of food-borne illness. Taking such measures to secure dumpsters is overwhelmingly a matter of making sure people pay for the products on the shelves instead of "stealing" something almost as good from the trash.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

If you can't trust someone to get the proper legal permits, how can you trust them to faithfully adhere to all health and safety requirements?

Generally speaking, "don't poop on this" is easier to follow than "spend several hundred dollars and wait several weeks to have your facility inspected, then wait another couple weeks for your permit to be processed and approved." Of course, it's a lot harder to say that about "make sure this meat did not exceed 4C at any point in the supply chain," which is a more salient concern, but I'm still inclined to say that it's easy enough to justify cutting bureaucratic corners that I wouldn't presume that to indicate that they cut corners on safety as well.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I might be biased, though. I have a friend who works for the DEP who's told me a few stories about just how criminally irresponsible businesses (both large and small) can be, even when it comes to public health issues.

Which is why I'm baffled by the people that genuinely expect businesses to enact mask mandates and the like of their own volition. In truth, I'm guessing most of them don't actually expect them to and are just saying that because they want masks to go away and they want to pretend they have a nobler guiding principle than that, but it's still a blatantly absurd suggestion.

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Zeus posted...

The entire food economic system is built around the idea of waste.

The entire economic system period is built around the idea of waste. We're a conspicuous consumerist society with planned obsolescence as a common business model.

It's part of what makes conservationist mandates to help combat climate change such an uphill battle - nearly every facet of modern existence is predicated on a complete lack of efficiency or resource responsibility/conservation.

Hell, we deliberately throw away helium just to fill up party balloons in spite of it being a crucial element for certain vital high-tech processes, which is going to fuck us hardcore when current stockpiles start running out. We're pretty much too stupid to live, but too damned lucky and stubborn to die.



adjl posted...

Generally speaking, "don't poop on this" is easier to follow than "spend several hundred dollars and wait several weeks to have your facility inspected, then wait another couple weeks for your permit to be processed and approved."

Yeah, but it's a question of "If I don't get caught, it doesn't matter". Trying to work within the system the way you're supposed to indicates that you're at least trying to do what you're supposed to. Not doing so kind of shows you're willing to take the easy way out when you can get away with it.

And things like "Ehh, fuck it, I don't really need to wash my hands after taking a shit" or "Ehh, I'll just wipe that up after it fell on the floor and cook it anyway" or "Well, this looks a bit spoiled and is past its expiration date, but I can still use it" fall into that. After all, who's going to know?

And that's not getting into the traditional fast food rumors like people spitting in your food, pissing in the pickle jar, or wiping their dick on your bun.

It basically boils down to how willing you are to trust total strangers with your well-being, or how capable you are of deliberately blocking out your awareness of what might be happening when no one's looking.
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adjl posted...

Which is why I'm baffled by the people that genuinely expect businesses to enact mask mandates and the like of their own volition. In truth, I'm guessing most of them don't actually expect them to and are just saying that because they want masks to go away and they want to pretend they have a nobler guiding principle than that, but it's still a blatantly absurd suggestion.

...what?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The entire economic system period is built around the idea of waste. We're a conspicuous consumerist society with planned obsolescence as a common business model.

While waste is a byproduct of consumerism (and industry in general), it's a FUNCTION of the food economy >_>

adjl posted...

Taking such measures to secure dumpsters is overwhelmingly a matter of making sure people pay for the products on the shelves instead of "stealing" something almost as good from the trash.

Wha?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's part of what makes conservationist mandates to help combat climate change such an uphill battle - nearly every facet of modern existence is predicated on a complete lack of efficiency or resource responsibility/conservation.

When it comes to efficiency regarding food, mistakes going over tend to be less disastrous than mistakes going under >_>

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Zeus posted...

...what?

People that get uppity about top-down mask mandates want businesses to be able to choose for themselves whether or not to enforce them. Anyone that's paid the remotest bit of attention to the world around them, however, knows that trusting businesses to act in the interest of public health on a purely voluntary basis is incredibly foolish, especially when doing so confers a competitive disadvantage.

Zeus posted...

Wha?

A substantial amount of the food that ends up in supermarket dumpsters is still safe and edible, given that there's a considerable amount of middle ground between "unsellable" (especially at the full asking price) and "unsafe/inedible." Stale bread, expired products that are still sealed or otherwise are usually good well past their date, produce with some ugly bruises that are easy to cut off... Rather than permitting people to take advantage of that, though, those supermarkets would rather secure their garbage such that everyone that wants food has no choice but to buy it from them (or one of their nearby competitors).

Basically, it's in supermarkets' best financial interests to ensure that nobody gets free food. Lock up the dumpsters, and that means people that can't afford to buy it still end up driving sales by relying on the charity of people who can. Leaving dumpsters unsecured, however, can lead to actual lost sales, such that they'd rather spend money to ensure that food rots than let it go to hungry people.

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