Garbage soup: This week's trashy roundup

The very first edition

Hello from me twice this week, can you believe it? I’m trying something new — a weekly round up of the latest and greatest (and worstest) garbage stuff. Let’s see how it goes, let me know if you like it or what you’d like to see more/less of. Without further adieu, a really random (but hopefully interesting to you) roundup:

Let’s get this [old] bread

I’m jazzed by this new-to-me business concept of “dynamic pricing.” The idea goes something like this, via Civil Eats:

In the bread aisle, you see two loaves identically wrapped; both are perfectly edible, but one is a day older and costs half the price.

In the produce section, you see two baskets of avocados. The ones in the front are ripe, will need to be eaten today, and cost 75 cents less than those in the back, which will last for a few days.

In 2021, grocery retailers in the U.S. produced 5.12 million tons of extra food — with 35% of it sent to the landfill or to be incinerated (both very bad, read my book ok?). Research from U.C. San Diego suggests that dynamic pricing could cut food waste from grocery retailers by 21%. That is yuge.

Now, tell me, what are you doing when faced with dynamic pricing?

Remote work is good for the planet

“Cartoon raccoon sitting at a computer desk” is what I asked Substack to generate and I simply adore it.

Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that people who WFH five days a week reduced their emissions by 54%. Even the hybrid model helps: “Working remotely two or four days a week reduced an individual’s emissions by up to 29% compared with on-site workers,” per the Guardian. Yippee, another justification for working sans pants.

Thrillingly good bills

Two bills that make up California’s Climate Accountability Package are on the brink of passing. I mentioned this in yesterday’s post — the new legislation will prevent companies from fudging their sustainability reports, among other things. Remember when we talked about scopes?

From JD Supra: “This bill will require all companies doing business in California with revenues upward of $1 billion to disclose Scope 1 and 2 (direct) emissions starting in 2026 and Scope 3 (indirect) emissions beginning in 2027.”

Any guesses as to whom Apple will employ as Mother Nature in its 2027 ad? I vote Muggsy Bogues.

Biden for climate jobs

I love this, in theory.

From NPR:

The White House on Wednesday unveiled a new climate jobs training program that it says could put 20,000 people to work in its first year on projects like restoring land, improving communities' resilience to natural disasters and deploying clean energy.

The program’s success and impact is, of course, TBD.

And that’s all. See ya soon!