Replate attempts to revolutionze leftovers

Posted by: Jeannie Choe on Tuesday, June 12 2007

For those who never eat their leftovers or don't even bother getting them wrapped up, Replate urges you to change your ways--get it to go and leave on top of the nearest trash receptacle for the less fortunate and hungry citizens of the streets. Replate hopes to get this "food activism" going with free stickers and downloadable posters for supporters to post around town, spreading the word and pushing movement. Wasting not--it's a great concept and we should always think of ways to conserve, but there are definitely a few holes in the plan (when it comes to our fair city, at least). A lot of NYC waste bins have no tops so the food would have to go beside, if not inside (heavens forbid) the cans. If humans don't get to that 1/3 of a burrito first, there's no doubt the food won't go to waste thanks to our healthy population of rats and roaches. There should be some room to appease urban hunger without birthing another dilemma involving unsightly litter...

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This may be a silly utopian idea, but if this type of initiative could get a government grant, cities could put "newspaper" type boxes out on the street that people could put the food into.

The unfortunate part of this idea is that its dangerous and there is too many people out there who wouldn't take it seriously. They'd use it as a trash receptacle or put tainted food into it.

It's a great idea, but flawed.

Government grant? You got me thinking, skip the receptacle and just get the government to buy food for everyone. And cars. And houses...

I love the heart behind this idea. Unfortunately, it couldn't possibly be a good way to prevent rats, etc from living large, so I can't get behind it. Too bad there isn't a way to just drop it off at the nearest soup kitchen. Maybe someone should start a service that collects donated doggie bags at local restaurants and brings them to the local homeless shelter.

I like the heart behind this as well. It's a good idea. People dig through trash for food, it's just going to happen...It may not be safe but I think any steps to make it safer are fine. I guess the problem is that the city couldn't be held responsible for abuse of the system. It's almost like it would have to be a guerrilla thing, with people putting attachments on trash bins and the city having a "don't ask don't tell" attitude towards the whole system.

The amount of leftovers we throw away is ridiculous, so this kind of thinking is needed. Unfortunately, I don't think this idea will work in practice.

I could see it working on an informal level. But why not just give your food directly to a homeless person? A newspaper-like box would get hot as heck and leftovers inside it would go bad quickly. Now refrigerated boxes--if we could get the government to splurge for those...

Also, homeless shelters aren't taking half-eaten food items. It's illegal. Once food has been served to a customer, it can't be re-served due to contamination fears. So even if you literally don't touch your Chili's baby back ribs, they can't be donated.

--Jonathan