Photo exhibit highlights thrown-away food, tells what you can do
Working in a Clinton, Iowa, supermarket that includes a restaurant, Pantelis Korovilas witnesses a lot of waste, sees a lot of people who load their plates with food from the buffet with no apparent intention of eating it all.
The waste bothers him not only because there are people around the globe going hungry but also because he thinks his generation — he’s 20 years old — is so accustomed to throwing things away that they don’t even notice it.
“It has become, for most of us, part of our culture, and it is hard to swim against the current or change old habits,” he says. “We were born with our eyes closed. Here are these people paying $6-something a meal, and they take one bite and leave it on the table. It says so much about my generation.”
In an effort to draw attention to the issue of waste — to make people actually see it — Korovilas has taken digital photographs of food left behind by diners, printed them on canvas, mounted the images on frames and created an art exhibit.
Seven of his pictures are on display through the end of this month at the Left Bank Art League gallery, 1629 2nd Ave., Rock Island, across from Bennigan’s Grill and Tavern restaurant.
The pictures show food as well as a large amount of single-use paper products headed for the landfill: plastic cups, lids and plates, paper napkins, sugar packets, Styrofoam containers and cellophane cracker wrappers.
Korovilas doesn’t just leave exhibit viewers hanging, though.
He sees his art as an awareness project, so accompanying the exhibit is a two-page flyer he prepared that explains the scope of food waste and what ordinary people can do to help.
Under the heading “take action,” he lists telephone numbers and Web sites of groups that recover food that can be consumed by people who are hungry.
Many people do not realize there are shelters and meal sites in the Quad-City region that will gratefully accept that plate of cold cuts left over from their son’s graduation party, for example, he explains.
One of them is the Victory Center Rescue Mission in Clinton, where Korovilas conferred with Pastor Robb Miltenberger, the assistant director. “We can reuse food the next day, especially those home-cooked meals that you and I like.” Miltenberger says.
Businesses and restaurants also can donate. The 1996 Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act protects good-faith donors and recipient agencies against liability except in cases of gross negligence and/or intentional misconduct.
In addition to the issue of food going to waste when it could be rerouted to the hungry, food that goes into landfills decomposes anaerobically, releasing methane gas that contributes to global warming, Korovilas points out in his flyer.
Methane is 21 times more damaging than carbon dioxide, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA. And food discards account for 6.7 percent by weight of the total U.S. municipal solid waste stream that goes into landfills nationwide, according to the EPA.
“I don’t expect to change the world, but I want to try to make people aware of the issue, the daily little things,” Korovilas says. “It is time to open our eyes.”
He hopes people viewing his exhibit will think twice the next time they’re in a buffet line and then take only as much as they need.
Korovilas graduated from Davenport North High School in 2006 and is taking 19 credit hours at Clinton Community College in hopes of graduating during May with an associate degree in graphic design. He’s also working two jobs: in the kitchen at the Clinton Hy-Vee Food Store and at his dad’s restaurant, J&D’s Steakhouse.
He got interested in photography at North under the guidance of art teacher Michele Mess. He is still deciding what he wants to do next, but he definitely wants to continue with his photography and is thinking of Web design and getting a degree in business.
Alma Gaul can be contacted at (563) 383-2324 or agaul@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
HOW MUCH WASTE?
More than a quarter of America’s food, or about 96 billion pounds per year, goes to waste — in fields, commercial kitchens, manufacturing plants, markets, schools and restaurants, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.
While not all of the excess food is edible, much of it is and could be going to those who need it.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
In addition to giving food to Quad-City shelters as an individual, you might want to join others in the growing food-recovery movement.
The EPA publishes an online guide that explains how any state or municipality, as well as any private business that deals with food, can reduce its solid waste by facilitating the donation of wholesome surplus food according to the food hierarchy (people first, then animals, then composting).
“This guide is about what you can do,” according to the EPA Web site.
To find the guide, go to epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/reduce/wastenot.htm.
ON THE WEB
n endhunger.org
n secondharvest.org
n foodnotbombs.net
n foodtodonnate.com
n thehungersite.com
n wastedfood.com
To contact Pantelis Korovilas, call (563) 210-6773 or send him an e-mail at pakorovilas@hotmail.com.