The Edge and Allotments have a plot to reduce food waste

South Dublin Allotments Association (SDAA) and Tallaght’s Edge Café have teamed up to reduce food produce waste.

Local allotment owners and growers who find themselves with excess produce are encouraged to bring it to The Edge Café on Avonmore Road, where it will be there for other locals to buy.

Money raised from those sales will go to Merchants Quay, a Dublin-based charity supporting the homeless and people dealing with drug addiction.

“We are not trying to compete with supermarket chains or anything like that,” said SDAA secretary Pat O’Rourke to The Echo, “But product waste is something that local allotment owners and growers are reporting and acknowledging increasingly.”

When chatting about it at The Edge, Pat and the café’s manager Ross Mooney agreed it would be a good idea to use such a popular spot to recycle that produce.

“Why don’t you bring it here?” said Ross. Pat then spread the rumour with local allotment owners and growers, who showed interest and willingness to co-operate.

“It’s nobody’s fault,” said Pat, “When you buy a package of seeds, it’s probably a hundred of them. But enough vegetables for a household can grow from ten to twenty seeds. What happens to what’s grown from the remaining 80?”

Pat and Ross will set up a few tables in the café’s outdoors and showcase the produce.

“We still don’t know how frequently we’ll do this, but following the harvesting seasons could be a good way,” said Pat.

“From November to March, there’s very little produce, so it might not be needed. But during abundance periods, it will be better than let it rot in the ground.

“Especially vegetables like rhubarb, cabbage, lettuce, or parsnip tend to be in excess and we would all need and use those in our homes. If we left them there over maturing, they would just go to waste.”

Pat reminded that besides tackling food waste, it will also be funding charity’s work. “It won’t benefit the South Dublin Allotments Association or The Edge financially, it’s just good for everyone,” said Pat.

“It won’t be supermarket prices, but it won’t be giveaway either. We are accepting people’s offers and at the end of the day we just want the produce not to be wasted.”