There is no age requirement to be an advocate for the environment. During the recent Iowa Wind Energy Day, five young advocates from Chasing Methane, ranging in age from 11 to 13, came to the Iowa Capitol to encourage people to support food waste composting. Why? As Joey Titus, a 7th grader at Southeast Junior High in Iowa City, Iowa said, “Right now the food waste coming from restaurants is going to the landfill which is creating methane and methane is a 25 times more damaging at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.”
When talking about greenhouse gases (GHG), carbon dioxide typically stands center stage, but as Titus points out, CO2 is not near as damaging as methane – a gas created through the decomposition of materials in a landfill.
Titus along with his club members, Andrew Burgess, a 5th grader at Borlaug Elementary, his brother Daniel Burgess, a 7th grader at Northwest Junior High and Ethan Trepka, also a 7th grader at Northwest Junior High, all in Iowa City, formed the group back in August of 2012. Titus’s Dad is the manager of Carlos O’Kelly’s in town, one of the restaurants, along with Applebee’s that participated in food waste audits.
When the Chasing Methane team looked through the trash of two restaurants, they found that combined, they were generating about 2 tons of waste every week, and 75 percent of that waste could be composted, said Titus.
Titus said his group would like to see a statewide composting initiative and even a nationwide initiative because right now this methane is going up and affecting the ozone layer, which is causing global warming, and its effecting all the weather we’re having.
They were on the capitol advocating for a bill that would allow the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to perform audits at restaurants to determine if legislating a statewide restaurant composting program would reduce methane in the environment. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad listened to the pitch right before the team headed down to the capitol refuse center to conduct a waste audit. Hopefully the findings will impact state legislators to be a leading state in passing a methane reduction bill.
As Titus aptly pointed out, not only restaurants create food waste – we create food waste at home as well. With only 50 percent of food that is produced is actually being eaten, he encourages consumers to join the composting revolution. You can do this by composting, joining a composting program and even by becoming a member of Chasing Methane. All ages from all cities around the world are invited to join.
Listen to my full interview with Joey Titus here: Chasing Methane Advocates at Iowa Capitol
See the 2013 Iowa Wind Energy Day Photo Album.