Talks to Watch

Food Waste: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

16.2M views · Jul 20, 2015 · 17:50 · 0 HN recommenders · 4 mentions · discussed 2015–2017

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on food waste covers how producers, sellers and consumers throw away huge amounts of food, including sell-by dates and donation myths.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters reference it as a source in threads on food waste, donation and landfill methane.

What Hacker News said 4

Cites itdostickAug 2015

“Check out the recent John Oliver piece about it,”

John Oliver segment debunking myths about donating food.

Full comment

That's a myth. You absolutely can donate food and there's no any law forbidding or giving you any legal consequences. Stupid myth that gets tons of food wasted every day. Check out the recent John Oliver piece about it, this video

in “13,000 fall into homelessness every month in L.A. County” · view on HN
Cites itthe_ancientSep 2015

“Relevant Part at ~9:35”

Relevant segment on selling outdated food.

Full comment

>>>you mean we can't prevent people from bringing an AK47 in school, as long as they don't shoot anyone? As a matter of General Law, no. However if the property owner, in this case the school board, chooses on their own to disallow guns on their property then a person violating that would be guilty of criminal trespass. This is true for a Starbucks, Walmart, your personal home or any other property. That being said the issue gets a little more tricky when it comes to government run property, with government run property I tend to come down on what I think is a reasonable position of if you are not required by law to be there then the individual government agencies can restrict gun possession provided there is not a superior law preventing that.. an example would be many State governments preempt local parks depts from passing rules prohibiting carry in a public park. >>>And one can drive as fast a she wants as long as there is no accident? Generally speaking I believe in enforcement of Reckless Driving Laws and less on arbitrarily defined laws. For the most part speed limits are less about safety and more about revenue generation for local government. Even under todays law if you are driving the speed limit and a cops believes that is unsafe for the road conditions you can be ticketed and even arrested. >>>One can sell outdated food as long as no client gets sick? this video Relevant Part at ~9:35

in “Government officials in Amherst, VA can now require employers to fire ex-cons” · view on HN
Cites itrootlocusMay 2016

“There was an entire episode of "Last Week Tonight" on this topic”

Full episode on food thrown away needlessly.

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Considering the massive amounts of food that gets thrown away even before the expiration date, I'm amazed this is even an issue. There was an entire episode of "Last Week Tonight" on this topic: this video

in “Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry” · view on HN
Cites itbrightballFeb 2017

“even biodegradeable materials will end up producing lots of methane in a landfill”

Covers methane from landfilled waste.

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I know I've heard at least recently that even biodegradeable materials will end up producing lots of methane in a landfill. Not an expert, clearly... this video

in “Robots Rule at Swiss Factories as Strong Franc and Wages Bite” · view on HN