Mother Davis looks down at her plate questioningly, and asks,
How can you be an activist without knowing what your actions are for?
This morning, I came across an interesting, yet annoyingly vague web site: Replate. Replate asks visitors to place their leftovers on top of garbage cans, “so they don’t go to waste”.
The Replate web site doesn’t explain how putting leftovers on top of a garbage can avoids having the leftovers go to waste. I have a suspicion about what Replate means to suggest – that hungry people will come and pick up the food and eat it. Still, I’m not sure that’s what Replate is actually all about.
The problem with the Replate project is that it doesn’t explain what replating is. A visitor to the Replate web site finds little explanation of the concept, yet is urged to spread the word: “Welcome to replate.org. Help us spread the word, so that we can spread the behavior. You probably already replate your leftovers. And that’s what’s so cool. The only thing we need to do differently, if we want to waste less and help more, is to spread the word.”
I’m flummoxed. What word? How can we spread the word if we don’t know what the word is?
I don’t already replate. I’ve never heard of replating. I don’t even live someplace where I can place leftovers on top of a trash can, because the trash cans where I live don’t have tops – except in my kitchen.
I also wonder, if we really want to waste less and help more, why we shouldn’t eat our own leftovers, and then give the money that we would have spent on another meal to an organization that helps people. That seems a whole lot nicer than leaving cold, unfresh, half-eaten food out on top of dirty garbage cans for people to forage.
I see that Replate is a project of Language In Common, a San Francisco communications consulting group. At the Language in Common web site, I learn only that “Replate is an open-source food activism project in which you may already be participating.”
Open source activism? Does that mean that you come up with a vague idea and hope that other people will fill in the blanks until it actually means something coherent?
Here’s a suggestion to the Language In Common group: In order to do genuinely creative communications, you need to actually create something, and then communicate about it. Explain what the project is about, and why people ought to care about it.
Restate Replate.
Spreading the word on her toast with a butter knife,
Mother Davis
Perhaps you’re not in an urban area, so you don’t get it. The project clearly aims to feed those who are hungry. Or at the very least, to start people talking about the food they waste. I live in LA, and I see people leave their leftovers from their night out at a restaurant on trash cans all the time. Maybe they’re not going to eat them and “don’t want them to go to waste.” And wouldn’t you rather have homeless people who search through garbage cans for food anyway not have to do so? It may not be perfect, but I think it’s a good step in the right direction.
I sure can’t figure it out. Anyone who has ever taken a food safety course knows this is not a safe way to store or distribute food. Is this project meant to decrease the homeless population through food poisoning? Or increase the fly and rat population? I can’t imagine a city as big as San Francisco would not have soup kitchens or a plan for controlling rodents that involves throwing away trash. The only thing I can figure is they’ve been eating California breakfast: fruits, nuts and flakes.
Does it clearly aim in that direction, Niles? I don’t see anything clear about it. If people don’t want to waste their leftovers, then why don’t they eat them themselves?
If people really want to help homeless hungry people, why don’t they give them a good fresh meal instead of table scraps left to molder outside on top of a garbage can?
Homeless people go through trash cans looking for something to recycle–mostly cans–so they can buy a bottle of hootch or a night in an SRO, not looking for food.
There are any number of churches and food pantries that provide the homeless with safe food and meals. Ususally they take donations of cash or canned goods, some even have regular deals with bakeries or coffee shops for day-old goods. The people who handle the food are trained in safe handling practices and do so according to a city code. These groups also provide some rudimentary medical screening and access to twelve-step groups–many times an individual’s poverty is linked to alcoholism or an addiction problem.
People who put their trash on top of trash cans are looking for 1)an excuse not to clean up after themselves (or to order the amount of food they actually need) 2)an excuse not to do something meaningful for the homeless 3)a reason to feel good about themselves.
Putting trash on top of trash cans might do something to fulfill the spiritual needs of the person who puts it there, but it does absolutely nothing for the homeless.