Designing for Zero Waste Food Service: A Bay Area – NYC Conversation

How can architects design food service spaces to facilitate zero waste operations? The Zero Waste Design Guidelines, developed through the AIA New York, will form the basis for this conversation, which brings together expertise on design, food service, and waste management from the Bay Area and New York City. Where do policies drive change, and where can they create barriers? How do design measures support more efficient use of food, and effective capture for donation, upcycling, composting or anaerobic digestion?

Learn how design improved the separation of waste in San Francisco Airport, and supported its ban on bottled water sales. Hear how Google is developing design guidelines for architects to facilitate zero waste operations. Find out how good design supports reuse of food serviceware and post COVID safety requirements.

This panel is the first of a series on Zero Waste Design for the San Francisco Bay Area, to bring the voice of architects into the vibrant local collaboration and support forward thinking policies on zero waste. After brief presentations by panelists, we will be engaging participants to outline a scope of zero waste design resources for the Bay Area.

Organized by
AIANY Committee on the Environment and AIASF Committee on the EnvironmentSpeakers

Moderator:
Clare Miflin, Founder, Center for Zero Waste Design, AIANY Committee on the Environment Co-chair

Panelists:
Chris Grace, Founder, Foodprint Group
Erin Cooke, Sustainability and Environmental Policy, San Francisco Airport
Stefan Moedritzer, Sustainability Waste Program manager, Real Estate & Workplace Services, GoogleRelated Events

Designing Sustainable Cities

A panel discussion on design resilience in the post-pandemic world.

Watch this conversation with MIT Professor Carlo Ratti of Carlo Ratti Associati, Joe Iles Circular Design Program Lead from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Clare Miflin Founder of ThinkWoven and the Center for Zero Waste Design, to learn how we can create a new future for our cities and ourselves.

Redesigning an affordable organic waste system for NYC to improve public space, health and equity

DSNY organic brown bins set out on the street alongside Bryant Park.

New York City’s Mayor de Blasio just committed to a green recovery that prioritizes equity, fairness, and the climate crisis. Composting, which creates green jobs, supports local food production, and increases environmental equity, should fit squarely within this mission. Yet, in this year’s crisis budget, the city cut all funding for organic waste collection.

The system needs a redesign, so the city can affordably collect all organic waste, transforming an inequitable problem into a valuable resource.

See full Op-Ed in City Limits

Mothers of Invention Podcast: Jugglers of Time

City resident and co-founder of Help Delhi Breathe, Reecha Upadhyay, tells us how she rallied tens of thousands of voters to pass legislation that will help cap air pollution killing millions every year. She discusses biomimicry with Clare Miflin, who shares her epiphany that nature doesn’t create any waste and that perhaps our misuse of materials is a design flaw. We hear how Clare took her thought to the NYC’s Department of Sanitation and developed the Zero Waste Design Guidelines. And we take a trip to Freetown, Sierra Leone to visit Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, to hear how she watched her beloved city become ravaged by war and disease, before putting it on a path to future green thinking and economic potential. Listen