Mitchell Center Undergraduate Research Internships
The Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions offers undergraduate internships related to their Food Rescue Maine research team. Food Rescue Maine is an interdisciplinary team dedicated to ending food waste in Maine through the development of triple bottom line solutions. Please contact Susanne Lee at susanne.lee@maine.edu if you are interested in applying for these internship positions.
Solutions to Combat Food Waste in Maine
Forty percent of food produced is never eaten. For Maine’s rural communities, food waste is a challenging and complex issue that is economically, socially, and environmentally costly. The direct cost of food loss including related costs for water, labor, energy, and soil used for uneaten food is significant. Maine also has the 12th highest rate of food insecurity in the US, with 1 in 5 children being insecure. The natural resources wasted on producing food that goes uneaten, as well as the products created as that waste decomposes have a negative impact on the environment and climate change. A transdisciplinary team was funded in 2019 to help identify triple-bottom-line food waste solutions for Maine. The team worked with Maine’s major food business, as well as organization stakeholders, and researched best practices to identify food waste solutions that would deliver major economic, social and environmental benefits for Maine.