Curiosity and concern. That’s what led Michelle Blankas, a SUNY-ESF student, to create the Food Recovery Network at her school and Syracuse University.

The goal of the FRN is to collect normally wasted excess food from university dining halls and distribute it back to the community. Blankas, a senior environmental studies major and chapter president, founded the chapter in October, according to the FRN website.

The chapter collects food Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights at 7:30 p.m. from Graham Dining Hall, People’s Place at Hendricks Chapel and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Trailhead Café. Volunteers assemble the leftover food into FRN trays and weigh it to track their progress.

Afterward, the packaged food is shipped to the beneficiary organization and unloaded into their storage containers. On average, volunteers recover 66 pounds of food per night with a record of 145 pounds of food, said Katja Fiertz, a co-founder of the chapter at SUNY-ESF.

Since the chapter was established, 3,415 pounds of food have been redistributed to interested partner agencies in the Syracuse area. By the end of the semester, they hope to recover 5,000 pounds of food, Fiertz said.

Jack Gugel, a freshman physics major and Food Recovery Network SU representative, said the high influx of students served each day, lack of refrigerator space in dining facilities and inability for charities to collect the extra food themselves are all major causes of accumulated food waste at SU.

“Food waste will usually go to one of two places — a landfill or an organization that will compost or otherwise reuse it,” Gugel said. “Putting food waste into a landfill is unwise because it will eventually decompose into methane, which is a very harmful greenhouse gas.”

Over the last few years, SU has sent food waste to the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency, where it is composted and reused. However, even food waste that goes on to be composted is a major source of inefficiency — food production is extremely resource intensive and it is a waste of energy, water, land and labor to produce food that isn’t going to be eaten, said Gugel.

With assistance from the national organization, the chapter was able to get in touch with local soup kitchens, shelters and SU’s and SUNY-ESF’s food services administration. From there, Blankas and Fiertz, also a senior at SUNY-ESF, worked to reach out to the SU and the SUNY-ESF community to recruit volunteers.

“SU dining services was on board with the idea, but was pretty unconvinced we would find anywhere to donate the food to,” Fiertz said. “Apparently people had tried in the past and hadn’t been able to find anywhere open late enough. Without the national organization’s help I’m not sure we could have either.”

“Now, that we are set up, we’re pretty independent,” Fiertz added. “As for volunteers, it started mostly with our friends and then expanded as we talked to classes and put up fliers.”

The group is not a registered student organization, but hopes to become one in the near future. While the process to become a recognized organization plays itself out, the Food Recovery Network at SU and SUNY-ESF aims to continue the work it’s been doing.

“We hope to become a club soon and we hope to reach out to as many shelters and soup kitchens as we can,” Blankas said. “This will take longer than I will be here, but as long as there are passionate people willing to take charge, I’m sure it will be fine.”

Published on March 17, 2015 at 12:01 am

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