Go to the interactive story “Don’t waste food“.

Most of us don’t know we waste food at home more than anywhere, causing harms to our planet.  This project with  Ally Levine and Clare Trainor illustrates multiple solutions to keep food out of landfills🍌

During research, I discovered EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy pyramid provides a great framework to prevent wasting food! I started sketching ideas to fill the pyramid with illustrated solutions at each stage:

Rough sketches always bring clarity. I realized the most solutions are to prevent food uneaten at the source. We also wanted to visually emphasize reducing waste is more impactful than solutions like recycling food into compost. Hence, we made the top layer a very long scroll

I want to add a dollop of delight to energize readers all the ways to not waste food! I chose a comic style and used bright colors to highlight solutions in each layer. Before/After🎨:

We thought it would be fun to follow a food character along the illustrated journey of preventing wasted food. Hence, the 🍌Banana Man🍌 was born! Much like a modern Clippy📎. Do you think you can spot all 25 🍌Banana Men🍌? Which one is your favorite? Read closely!

I was shocked to learn~20lbs food/person is wasted per month in the US !To understand, I recorded our own+had my husband bring a scale to work. We realized being mindful can really cut down edible waste to near 0! We recorded 0.4lb waste/day. New insight: bread bowl=big waste

With many climate actions out of our hands, everyone can reduce food waste. After all, the best way is to “just eat it!” To end on a hopeful note, we illustrated a planet where all food is out of landfills, nourishing our land+community(🍌man+🐷 included!)

Check out my other projects!