UK Residents waste $20 Billion worth of food every year, The Guardian reports. A new British Government study on waste has found that Britons are simply throwing away $20 Billion worth of food that could have been eaten. If you’ve sampled certain British cuisine, this might not come as much of a surprise, but the negative effect this enormous amount of waste has on the environment is no joke.

Approximately $12 Billion of the total comes from food that is bought but never touched. Britons simply toss out 13 million unopened yogurt containers, 5,500 untouched chickens and 440,000 un-nuked TV Dinners each year. The rest of the $20 Billion comes from excess food which is prepared to eat but never consumed because the amount was misjudged and the extra is never eaten as leftovers.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out our most popular articles of the week on a variety of subjects, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

Helen Keller & Anne Sullivan Surfaces 120 Years Later

Hallelujah For American Idol, Jeff Buckley and Leonard Cohen

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Nicole:

Google Gives Free Voicemail to San Francisco Homeless

Gabriel Garcia Marquez Turnes 80

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Giulia:

Patrick Swayze’s Cancer Battle

Koby Bryant’s PSA for ASR

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Gina:

Reese’s Empowering Bracelet

“Chop Shop” - Dreams In a Place of Despair

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Kerry:

Bamboo Laptop: Will Apple Be Green with Envy?

The Explosive Truth About Twinkies

Google has teamed up with the City of San Francisco to help hundreds of homeless people get back on their feet by providing them with a free lifelong phone number and voicemail service. Project Homeless Connect will allow homeless individuals looking for employment to be able to put a callback number on a job application, and to give health clinics a phone number to receive test results over the phone. This free service will also allow for contacts from friends and family who might not be able to get in touch otherwise.

“How do you communicate as a homeless individual? ” SF Mayor Gavin Newsom asked. “How do you expect your life to turn around if you can’t even get information or if someone can’t even get in touch with you?”

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GOOD, Kenneth Cole Productions and MySpaceTV have launched On Skid Row, a five-part documentary series that will shed light on a place that is invisible to most people; a place where 9,000 homeless people, whose average age is 9, live in abject poverty, card board boxes, surrounded by feces, urine, rats, prostitution and crime; where mentally ill are dropped off to fend for themselves. And this isn’t a far away place in the third world. In the words of the writer and narrator Sam Slovick, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, this is the first “Third World city in America.” This is Los Angeles’ Skid Row, the notorious neighborhood, which, ironically, is right next to LA’s financial district. On Skid Row is produced by Good Magazine, will be screened on MySpaceTV, and is sponsored by Kenneth Cole Productions. So and check out Part One of On Skid Row on MySpaceTV, at GOODMagazine or at Kenneth Cole Productions’ Awearness Blog. And to find out other ways you can to help alleviate homelessness, check out HELP USA.

When Will Ferrell installed solar panels on his home, he tapped into star power, too; through the BP Solar Neighbors Program, Ferrell’s solar power purchase sponsored the installation of a 48-panel solar system for the St. George Hotel, a permanent residence for the formerly homeless run by the Skid Row Housing Trust.

The St. George’s solar system was unveiled today by actor/director Ed Norton, who helped create the BP Solar Neighbors Program, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The Solar Neighbors Program donates a solar system to a low income family for each solar system installed by a celebrity. Norton explained the program’s mission:

“Many people perceive environmentally friendly practices as costly and available only to the wealthy…We need to expand our awareness of the many ways environmentally sustainable development and construction can apply to affordable housing. The installation of the BP solar panels on the St.George is a great example of a dynamic solution to our intensifying economic and environmental crisis.”

Norton’s green do-goodiness is in his DNA; he’s on the board of the Enterprise Community Partners, a non-profit co-founded by his grandfather, James Rouse. Enterprise, whose goal is “to see that all low-income people in the United States have the opportunity for fit and affordable housing and to move up and out of poverty into the mainstream of American life,” is a partner in the BP Solar Neighbors Program. How’s that for a shining example of the golden rule?

Learn more about Enterprise’s excellent endeavor at enterprisecommunity.org.

 

A brand new homeless shelter in Oakland, California, features the latest in green design, as the New York Times reports:

The facility, Crossroads, which will accommodate 125 residents, may be the only “green” homeless shelter built from the ground up. It has a solar-paneled roof, hydronic heating, artful but practical ceiling fans, nontoxic paint, windows that can be opened to let in fresh air, and desks and bureaus made from pressed wheat.

It took ten years for the East Oakland Community Project to obtain the $11 million dollars it cost to build the state-of-the-art Crossroads, but it’s an idea whose time has come. Poor communities have long been subjected to “environmental racism,” i.e. the practice of using their neighborhoods as a dumping ground for undesirable, pollution-generating facilities. As a result, folks in less affluent communities are routinely exposed to higher levels of contaminants of all kinds.

The homeless people who will be moving into Crossroads just as soon as the beds have been delivered are looking forward to getting off the grimy streets and into their new clean tech home. One soon-to-be resident, Paul MClendon, told the Times:

“It’s going to be one beautiful place…It has respect for the environment, global warming and saving trees. 

 Learn more about the East Oakland Community Project’s mission here.

What would Jesus think? Two groups who make it their mission to feed West Palm Beach’s homeless have been forbidden to give away free food in public places. The groups, Art and Compassion and Food Not Bombs, are suing to have the ban overturned, the Palm Beach Post reports, citing the absurdly vague wording of the ordinance:

The measure prohibits anyone from giving away food. Strictly applied, someone sharing an extra sandwich with a friend could be arrested and charged with a crime, punishable by a maximum $500 fine or 60 days in jail.Since the measure was passed on Sept. 24, the groups have continued to hand out free food on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons in Centennial Square in front of the library. Although police have watched, they have not stopped either group from handing out meals.

Mayor Lois Frankel explained that she felt compelled to instigate the ban in response to residents and business owners who complained “that the homeless who gather for the free food are unsightly and dangerous.”Lucky for all those unsightly, dangerous, and no doubt hungry down-and-outers, the cops don’t feel compelled to enforce the ban.Learn more about Food Not Bombs here.

By Giulia RozziNew Orleans just can’t catch a break. The New Times reported that the city is suffering from an acute shortage of housing. Nearly two years after the this national tragedy, suffering still remains as many are still without homes.To view the NY Times video on housing anxiety click here And here is a list of Huricane Katrina charities.