How Ben & Jerry’s Is Recycling Food Waste into Energy
Ask students: Where does Ben & Jerry’s send its food waste instead of sending it to landfills?
Note: If you are short on time, watch the video and complete this See, Think, Wonder activity: What did you notice? What did the story make you think about? What would you want to learn more about?
It may sound like the stuff of sci-fi movies, but diverting food waste from the landfill and converting it into electricity has become a real thing. William Brangham visited Ben & Jerry’s Vermont ice cream factory and the operations next door to find out how it works.
View the transcript of the story.
Discussion Questions
- Who has to figure out what to do with the waste ice cream products?
- What produces methane, a greenhouse gas and contributor to climate change?
- Where does Ben & Jerry’s send its food waste instead of sending it to landfills?
- When in the alternative process of waste management does waste turn into electricity?
- How is the alternative process beneficial, beyond just producing electricity?
Focus Questions
What role do businesses play in helping their communities transition to more clean and sustainable practices?
Media literacy: Why is it important to seek out multiple sources before forming an opinion on a topic like this?
Extension Activity
Using this News: Then & Now section based off of News Hour's Journalism in Action website, a project supported by the Library of Congress, which allows students to engage with a more dynamic display of how communities address civic issues over time, inviting them to consider their ability for intervention in their own context.
- Then: Students joined the School Garden Army during WWI to reduce waste and encourage locally grown food.
- Now: Ben & Jerry's food waste is responsibly turned into reusable energy through anaerobic digestion, reducing the release of greenhouse gases, a contributor to climate change.
Consider: Using the Then & Now comparison, how have our approaches to sustainability changed over the years? Why was it important then to grow locally? Why is it important now to employ greener practices?
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Republished with permission from PBS News Hour Classroom.
PBS News Hour Classroom helps teachers and students identify the who, what, where and why-it-matters of the major national and international news stories. The site combines the best of News Hour's reliable, trustworthy news program with lesson plans developed specifically for... See More
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