Lights! Camera! Donated food! » Yale Climate Connections

Transcript:

Hollywood film sets are bustling with people – from actors and makeup artists to camera operators and directors – and they all need to be fed.

Cohen: “It’s really like going kind of to a wedding every day for lunch.”

That’s Hillary Cohen. She and Samantha Luu have both worked as assistant directors on film and TV sets. And they’ve seen how much food can go to waste – sometimes because too much was made, other times because scheduling changes left fewer people on set than expected.

So to keep food from getting trashed, they created the nonprofit Every Day Action.

Their team collects unused meals from sets and brings them to pantries, shelters, low-income apartments, and other places where they’re needed.

Cohen: “And we’re saving anywhere from, I’d say, 500 meals to 2,000 meals a week.”

So the effort is helping feed people who may struggle to afford food.

And it helps the climate, too, because it keeps so much food from rotting in landfills and emitting climate-warming methane. And it reduces how much food overall has to be produced, processed, and trucked – all of which creates carbon pollution.

So there are multiple benefits to putting Hollywood’s leftovers to good use.

Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media