【推荐2】There is a small but growing movement in America of households that want to reduce waste to zero. Zero Wasters, as they are called, help each other by sharing advice on blogs and social media. A number of people also have written recent books on the subject.

Bea Johnson is author of Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life. She said, “It may be too extreme for some people, but even if you can cut your trash down by even 20 percent, you’ll gain 80 percent of the benefits, like saving time and money for experiences instead of shopping for unnecessary stuff. It’s about a simpler life based on being, not having.”

Johnson said that reducing shopping means her family has more money for fun vacations. She said her family buys recycled things also. All their clothing, for example, comes from used clothing stores. She says that has reduced her household spending by 40 percent.

“We can get most brands on eBay and request that they be sent to us without any non-recyclable packaging,” she said.

Zero Wasters like to talk about five “R’s”: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rot. The first “R” stands for refuse. They refuse containers and plastic straws at restaurants. To this end, they either ask to use their own containers or request that things like food be wrapped in paper. Zero Wasters also seek to reduce the number of things they buy. They reuse household goods and recycle materials. They also try to compost, or rot, food material that can be used to enrich soil.

Amy Korst is another most popular writer in the zero waste movement. She wrote the book Zero Waste Lifestyle: Live Well by Throwing Away Less. She noted that once food is buried under plastics and other things in, for example, a landfill, it no longer composts as it normally would. She said that is why it is so important to cut down on using things made out of plastic and separate things that can be broken down from other trash. She recommended residents to contact the local sanitation department in understanding how to recycle. Officials there will be able to advise about what can be recycled and how to do it.

【推荐3】It’s always been a rule in my family, spoken or unspoken, that you don’t waste food. With six children herself and having grown up in an even larger family through the Great Depression, my mother would never tolerate throwing out the amounts of food we see routinely these days in the dumpster. We were told simply to clean our plates, no matter whether we liked the taste or if we were not hungry or not. So this subject is deep in my genes and upbringing.

Estimates are that nearly one third of all food produced is wasted. USDA estimates 31% of food available at retail (零售)level is wasted. 12% of landfill material is food. 28% of agricultural land produces food which is wasted, says the FAO. 18% of vegetables, and 12% of the apple crop are lost at the farm level in the United States., say experts.

Luckily, there’s an “ugly food” movement picking up steam. “Ugly” foods are those that sellers and buyers often reject because of their appearance, like misshapen vegetables and bruised（擦伤的） fruits. Farmers dump them. Supermarkets and restaurants reject them. Now supermarkets and restaurants reject them. Consumers historically have avoided them. Now supermarkets feature the ugly. It’s fashionable. More artful terms are favored. A French supermarket chain is selling “inglorious” foods. The British chain ASDA uses “wonky（歪斜的）” (which to American ears might sound as bad as “ugly.”) Canada’s Loblaws uses “naturally imperfect.” Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who has cast himself as a promoter of the “good food movement,” has signed on with some British chains to support their efforts.

With the effort of Kretschmann Farm CSA’s we’ve taken the line that rather than throw away things which would be classified by others as ugly, inglorious, or imperfect, we would just give them to you and you could decide. Either we throw them away, or you can. Oftentimes this adds to the volume of the box, or makes it a little more urgent to consume (because sometimes those rejected foods are just very ripe!).