What do we eat, wear, watch?

In the revolutionary and open-hearted town of Galdakao, Spain, locals are making a difference in their community by providing the country’s first communal fridge. This fridge is filled with donated food to help feed anyone who is hungry or in need.

This is an important step in the right direction when you consider that one-third of all food that is produced in the world goes to waste. When you add that fact to the statistics about the growing problem of world hunger, you can see how much of a difference this idea could make in towns, even entire communities.

“Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy, active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth.”

Galdakao, Spain is doing something to change these statistics for their area. The town is urging local citizens to put their leftover food in the outdoor community fridge for anyone in need.

This city of about 30,000 residents has its country’s first communal refrigerator and has a “no questions to judgement” policy for people who use the fridge. This helps the citizens who are in need to receive some help while those with plenty can freely give.

Alvaro Saiz, who used to run the food bank in Galdakao, came up with the idea for the fridge during the recession in Spain. He saw many people going through trash bins to look for food and decided that there had to be a better way for individuals and restaurants to donate unused food to those who were going without.

Saiz took matters into his own hands by meeting with the local mayor and discussing his plan. After that, he helped with the installation of the refrigerator on the street where people could donate and the hungry could eat.

“When he came to city hall with this idea, I thought it was both crazy and brilliant!” Mayor Ibon Uribe told NPR. “How could I say no?”

There were some legal issues that needed to be worked out in order to start the plan. The city came up with a $5,500 fee for the project and had to change the law, which would keep people from being sued if someone were to get sick.

The rules of the fridge are that all food has to be throw out after 4 days and they aren’t allowed to leave raw meat or eggs in the fridge.

However, the time frame for throwing food out has been unnecessary, because – according to those who maintain the ‘Solidarity Fridge’ – the food never lasts more than a few hours.

Local restaurants have started to leave leftover food in the fridge and some people will even go out of their way to cook whole meals, just to donate to those who are in need.

The schools in Galdakao have taken advantage of this teaching opportunity and began organizing field trips to the local outdoor fridge so that the children can learn about sharing and how to stop being wasteful

Hopefully, many more cities will follow suit soon and we will reduce waste while feeding the hungry world wide. Let us know your thoughts about food waste and the hungry in the comments below.