Revised Concept Sketch

Here is my revised concept sketch for the Food Bin. It's essentially an insulated box that collects food to be donated. At the end of the week, theses bins are picked up and taken to a food bank, and the donors receive a small refund for their donation.

Food Waste

Every day, over 50 million Americans go to bed hungry. At the same time, we throw out tons of good, usable food. At home, lots of food is wasted because we buy a lot more than we can consume. At school cafeterias and grocery store, the unused food at the end of the day is often thrown away. Sadly, food in this country is so cheap and readily available that many of us can discard it without a second thought.

Discarded produce (The Independent)

Fortunately, there are some solutions. Stores like Trader Joe's donate their leftovers daily to food pantires and soup kitchens. Some school districts collect unopened items (like cookies or cracker packets) and donate them to the food bank at the end of the week. Programs like Food Shift make unused milk cartons from school cafeterias available for free to people in the community.

I think it would be good to have a food bin at school or in communities (like parks or social buildings) where people can drop off unused, sealed food containers, instead of having them sit at home until they expire. Also, I think the FUSD can also start donating extra food to pantries like the Tri City Food Bank. At the very least, we should make composting more common and easy, instead of sending our food waste to the landfill.

Problems in the World

- The walkway behind Centerville Junior High School is often covered in trash and glass, and it's dangerous for the students who walk through it every day.

- So much good, usable food is thrown out everyday by grocery stores and cafeterias (probably including Washington's). There are some programs that help connect excess food to needy people, but they aren't very common. It's a waste that can easily be prevented.

- Grey water from showers, baths, and laundry goes straight to the sewer. It can easily be used for gardening and irrigation. At home right now, we put buckets in the shower and water the plants with the water we collect every few days but that's really tedious and inefficient. It would be much better if the grey water went directly to the outside water supply.

- Alarm clocks are pretty easy to ignore and when I do hear mine, I dismiss it and fall back asleep.

- Notebooks are either too short or long. Either you run out of pages or you end up with lots of empty pages that can't be used for other things.

- Nail clippers are really messy, and they throw little nail pieces all over the room.