Japan - goat rental weeding project

Mikuni Construction Co. in Kitakyusyu City, southern Japan, announced that it would be launching a new service to rent goats for weeding grass starting in April 2010. This unique weeding method does not require any machinery, and is drawing attention as an environmentally friendly technique.

Japan for Sustainability reports that, having first heard about weeding with goats from his business associate, Katsuhiko Sera, the president of the company, has been investigating the approach for 3 years in an effort to devise a viable business model. He bought five goats in May 2009, and by tethering the goats with a cable, about 500 square meters of grass can be grazed over the course of a week. A trial "rent-a-goat" began in August 2009, but will be fully launched in March 2010.

Goats eat various types of weed. They eat all aboveground stems and leaves, and prefer to graze on slops, which people often find it difficult to weed. Furthermore, weeded material does not require disposal when using this method and the goat dung produced simply decomposes and is returned to the soil.

In addition to renting goats, the company plans to provide its own weeding service by increasing the number of goats, and to manufacture cheese and other products from goat milk. Mr. Sera hopes that his rental goat service will serve not only as a new tool to maintain urban green spaces, but will also assist the comfort of local residents.

Technorati Tags: goat rental waste minimisation waste prevention Japan garden+waste

USA - Americans wastes 40 per cent of its food

A new study claims that Americans throw out about 40% of all their food, and food waste per person in the US has increased 50 per cent since 1974, according to LiveScience .

The study, conducted by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and published in the journal PLoS ONE , calculated the difference between the US food supply and what's actually eaten by using a model of human metabolism and known body weights.

The new numbers are up significantly from a report last year by an international group that estimated that up to 30 per cent of food -- worth about US$48.3 billion -- is wasted each year in the United States. Those calculations and others like it were typically based on interviews with people and inspections of garbage, which the NIDDK believes underestimates the waste.

Food waste also contributes to excess consumption of freshwater and fossil fuels which, along with methane and carbon dioxide emissions from decomposing food, impacts global climate change.

Despite all the waste, many Americans are still going hungry. A recent report by the Department of Agriculture found the number of U.S. homes lacking "food security," meaning their eating habits were disrupted for lack of money, rose from 4.7 million in 2007 to 6.7 million last year.

About 1 billion people worldwide don't have enough to eat, according to the World Food Programme .

Full journal here

Technorati Tags: food waste waste minimisation waste prevention USA food poverty