This week is Food Waste Prevention Week, and in an effort to raise awareness about the importance of reducing food waste, we are offering a quick introduction of the keynote speakers who will be featured at the upcoming 3^rd Annual Food Recovery Forum and 6^th annual Composting and Organics Recycling Conference at WasteExpo, which is an event not to be missed. The Food Recovery Forum will focus on solutions to the prevention, reduction and recovery of food waste. The Organics Recycling Conference provides critical information on organics management and the progress being made to expand the organics infrastructure in the U.S. Some of the topics covered include composting, anaerobic digestion, organics recycling, renewable energy from organics, infrastructure development, compostable packaging, innovative conversion technologies and more.

The conference opens with a keynote session featuring Darby Hoover, senior resource specialist for the food and agriculture program at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Her presentation includes the results of a partnership between NRDC and the Ad Council in the development of a nationwide public service awareness campaign to reduce wasted food. The campaign, “Save the Food,” focuses on combating food waste from consumers, its largest source, who collectively waste more food than grocery stores, restaurants or farms.

The next keynote speaker is Kate Worley, senior manager of solid waste and recycling at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., who will present “Walmart’s Farm-to-Fork Food Waste Strategy.” As the world’s largest grocer, the company’s efforts to improve the broader ecosystem of food waste prevention by working with customers, suppliers, nonprofit organizations and governments will be presented.

Our last keynote speaker is Paul Relis, senior vice president at CR&R Inc., who will present “California’s Mighty Organics Recycling Challenge: Can It Be Met and How?” California has embarked on achieving the goal to remove organics in landfills by 2025, with an emphasis on building a statewide organics infrastructure that will require a multibillion-dollar investment. CR&R’s anaerobic digestion facility is the largest one in North America. It will be explained how its facility implements all aspects of California’s organics policy objectives.

Whereas the first two keynote presentations focus on offering solutions for the prevention, reduction and recovery of wholesome food, the last speaker discusses how to recover the volumes of remaining food scraps to produce renewable energy and compost for creating healthy soils and growing healthy plants.

This is just a small sampling of what’s in store at this year’s Food Recovery Forum and Organics Recycling Program. There are too many featured speakers and leading organizations to mention in one article. For Food Recovery Forum highlights, click here. To review the entire Food Recovery Program, click here and go to Track 2. To review the entire Organics Recycling Conference Program, click here and go to Track 1.

We look forward to seeing you at WasteExpo, which is being held April 23-26 in Las Vegas.

Stuart Buckner is the organics editor for Waste360 and president of Buckner Environmental Associates LLC, a consulting firm specializing in organics management and food recovery.