Written byJENS MANUEL KROGSTAD
Allison Peterson’s heart sank last week when she discovered her lost iPhone was in the bowels of a garbage truck zigzagging through her Waukee neighborhood.

While her phone’s GPS chip helped her locate the lost device, it was the kindness of the trash collectors that got the phone back into her hands.

The tale begins on Friday, when Peterson couldn’t find the iPhone she had had for about six months. It didn’t take her long to figure out that it most likely had fallen out of her pocket and into an old green recycling bin she had tossed.

Peterson, 39, had the foresight to download a free “Find My iPhone” app to her computer. She clicked on the app and then watched as the blip moved through her neighborhood.

She quickly dashed out of her house to track down the garbage truck. When she found the truck, driver Brent Klaassen stopped his route and called the phone, which later was discovered to have had its ringer turned off.

Klaassen then offered to let Peterson look for the phone at the landfill. While Peterson turned her nose up at that idea, she did call her husband, Mark, to see if he would sift through the trash.

“Once she told me that it would cost around $700 to replace the phone, I said I’d drive up and see what I could do,” said Mark Peterson, who with his wife, has five children.

Several workers for Metro Waste Authority and Waste Management helped Mark Peterson search for the phone Friday, a frigid day.

“The actions of these folks saved me a large amount of money, got me some brownie points with my wife … and made me appreciate how people who didn’t even know me, had nothing to gain, and probably thought I was crazy, took the time to help,” Mark Peterson, 46, wrote in a two-page thank-you letter.

Klaassen and his co-workers have been through similar situations. In their business, people sometimes call in a panic about lost diamond rings, wallets and other valuables.

What made this situation unique is that the owner immediately located her phone through the GPS chip. This gave Klaassen time to separate the trash from the rest of the landfill, said Reo Menning, spokeswoman for Metro Waste Authority.

“If this had been dumped with all the other trucks delivering the garbage, there’s no way this would have been found,” she said.

On the second pass through the pile of trash with a bulldozer, the men spotted the old green recycling bin.

The workers unfolded the container, which had been flattened by the trash compactor, and found the iPhone. The screen was free of scratches and cracks, though there was a slight bend in the body of the phone.

Mark Peterson, by this time giddy with joy, picked up the phone and dialed his wife.

“I found it,” he said.


Article from http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120125/NEWS/301250051/-1/becker_trial/Pricey-cellphone-carted-off-by-garbage-truck-recovered-landfill

JANUARY 9, 2012 
BY HEATHER CARR 
Article from Eat Drink Better blog

On “The Big Waste”, four Food Network chefs prepare a multi-course feast for one hundred people with waste food. Anne Burrell, Bobby Flay, Alex Guarnaschelli, and Michael Symon groan when they hear the challenge. Garbage? Unfortunately, they find it’s very easy to produce a large feast from the food that’s wasted each day.

Typical of Food Network shows, the four chefs are competing in teams to see who can come up with best recipe from a limited selection of foods. They can only use ingredients on their way to the trash. According to the show, 40% of food in America goes uneaten – 200 pounds per person per year. Food waste is a big problem.

Waste in Food Preparation and DistributionAlex and Anne start at Ferrara Bakery, where they find that the ends of deli-sliced meat and grinds of coffee and cocoa are thrown away. Flour on the outside of rising dough is swept off and thrown away instead of being reused or repurposed.

Bobby and Michael go to Manhattan Food Exchange, where fresh produce that looks fine to my eye is being thrown out. The owner of the store points out peas with lighter green spots on the pods. He takes the chefs to the back of the store and shows them carrots with bumps and radishes with wilted greens. All this is food that we would love if we pulled it out of our own gardens.

The next place Alex and Anne go to is a seafood distributor. He’s stuck with returned orders because of party cancellations and other reasons and, in some cases, fish with slightly discolored flesh that are still fresh. As a distributor, he can’t find a new buyer before the fish goes bad. Any delay of delivery can mean that he’ll lose a large stock of fish.

Bobby and Michael continue on to a butcher. They find beef bones and organ meats that are going to be thrown away. They make the obvious decision and take those home for broth and stock.

All the food has to pass inspection by a food inspector. He meets them back at the kitchen and tests all the animal products for temperature. Everything passes, except the prosciutto, which Anne decides to take home and feed her family.

Dumpster Diving with a FreeganNext up, Anne Burrell spends an evening with a freegan. A freegan dumpster dives for food. After stores close, they throw away the food that will expire the next day or just to make room for the next day’s inventory. The segment shows an astonishing amount of fresh veggies and prepared food in the garbage.

It’s a great idea to reduce waste, but with one caveat: you really have to know what you’re doing to pull food out of the garbage and eat it. Earlier in the day, the chefs were looking at food pulled from produce stands. Once food goes into the garbage, you don’t know if the raw produce has had contact with raw meat. A store might have thrown out that prepared food because they found a problem with the preparation and decided it was unsafe, not just “old”.

Waste on the FarmThe next day, the chefs head out to various farms and produce stands. Rick at Lawrence Farm Orchards says that 40 to 50% of his food is wasted. His pick-your-own farm has a lot of food lying on the ground and he says this is because people pick a head of cabbage or a tomato and then see one they like better, so they throw the first one on the ground.

At the other farms, the same thing happens. The piles of fresh produce that are being wasted are beautiful, but sad.

The Chicken and the EggBut what was even more sad was amount of chicken and eggs wasted. Chickens are thrown out just because of appearance. They show one where the wing is broken, but the rest of the chicken looks fine. If I were roasting a whole hen, it would matter. Most of the time, though, when I buy a chicken, I’m just going to cut it up anyway.

Eggs are thrown out because of size. The ones that are too big can’t fit in the carton. The ones that are too small wouldn’t stay put and might break in the carton. They’re just as useful in making bread or scrambled eggs, but they never make it to market.

The last fifteen minutes of the show focus on the competition and the dishes the chefs produce from the waste foods. By now, I’m sure you realize that their options are really unlimited. They’re pretty much the same as if they had shopped in the grocery store for the food.

“The Big Waste” will show again on Food Network at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on January 14.

Image of produce via Shutterstock

By Christopher Rosacker
Staff Writer 

A festive holiday season can bring families together in picturesque settings, often with lots of food and gifts to exchange. 

But all this travel and extra activity produces a lot of waste.

“We see more trash because people come in for the holidays and people are cooking more,” said Daria Kent, a recycling technician at the McCourtney Road Transfer Center.

Grass Valley and Nevada City dump trucks picked up three tons more waste on the Monday and Tuesday following Christmas than on those same days' averages during the rest of the year, reported Waste Management spokesman Justin Caporusso.

On Dec. 12, Waste Management collected around 40 tons of garbage locally, but collected 59 tons two weeks later on the Monday after Christmas, Caporusso said. 

Nationwide, Americans throw away 25 percent more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year's as compared to any other time of the year, according to Waste Management. Traditionally, the extra waste amounts to about 1.2 million extra tons per week — or an extra 6 million tons during the entire holiday season.

Although waste collection services see more waste on their routes, landfills don't necessarily see the spike. 

Last year, approximately 945 tons of solid waste material was deposited in the week prior to Christmas at the McCourtney Road Transfer Center, according Bob Elder, operations manager of the western Nevada County landfill. 

Although that number is 45 tons more than the typical 900-ton weekly average, Christmas week sees a drop in disposal of waste, Elder said. Last year's Christmas week only saw 697 tons deposited at the landfill, followed by 850 tons the subsequent week.

“Weather dictates a lot of people's dropping off,” Elder said, adding that many who generally deposit waste at the landfill may travel, or don't work during the week between Christmas and New Year's. 

Elder said this year's December total numbers are not yet tabulated and were not available Friday, but he doesn't anticipate them to deviate from the norm.

While regular solid waste may not be so heavy during the weeks people typically celebrate the December holidays, recyclable drop offs do spike, Elder reported.

For the month of December 2010, 1,347 ton of recyclables were brought to the McCourtney Road Transfer Center, where as October of that same year only totaled 1,108 tons, Elder reported. 

“It's really mostly about packaging material, cardboard and Styrofoam,” Kent said.

On Dec. 12 and 13, Waste Management collected 91 tons of recyclables, which jumped to 96 tons on Dec. 26 and 27, Caporusso said.

“This is the third year we have not bought any Christmas wrapping supplies,” wrote Nevada City resident Ann Hobbs in a note to The Union. “We continue to re-use both paper (in good shape), ribbon, bows and make our tags out of Christmas cards. It's not a big savings, but it isn't as if its single use makes it unusable or dirty.”

Another seasonal spike is the legal disposal of pharmaceuticals at safety bins at places such as the Grass Valley Police Department and Kmart, Kent said. 

“People are lightening their load for the first of year,” Kent said. “There just seems to be more awareness of it heading into the New Year.”

To contact Staff Writer Christopher Rosacker, e-mail [email protected] or call (530) 477-4236.  
Article from: http://www.theunion.com/article/20120102/BREAKINGNEWS/120109990/1001&parentprofile=1053