It has been a busy and successful summer for the Food: Too Good to Waste campaign, put on by the city of Issaquah Office of Sustainability in partnership with King County Green Tools.

The program, aimed at reducing the amount of food that goes to waste every day in local households, has gained 350 participants since its adoption in March 2015.

Every year, Americans waste about 25 percent of the food that they purchase. In King County, this translates to 390 pounds of food per single-family household; in fact, at the Cedar Hills Landfill in Maple Valley, one-third of the garbage regularly deposited is rotten food.

Through the Food: Too Good to Waste program, Issaquah residents can access resources that help them track how much food they buy and actually end up consuming, as well as guides for how to keep food fresh for as long as possible.

It’s all about educating people, Sustainability Coordinator Megan Curtis-Murphy explained. That’s why the Office of Sustainability has been tabling at the Issaquah Farmers Market and at local grocery stores throughout the summer handing out the free Food: Too Good to Waste toolkit to people as they do their food shopping.

“It’s a great way to engage people one-on-one,” Curtis-Murphy said. “You’re able to get more of a lasting behavior. It’s more effective.”

The toolkit includes several different supplies for reducing household waste. The SMART Shopping worksheet allows shoppers to make categorized lists of what foods they have in the house already and what they still need to stock up on. The SMART Storage Guide magnet teaches how to properly store different kinds of fruits and vegetables so that they last as long as possible. With the Eat Me First cards, people can put little reminders on the foods in the fridge that should be consumed soonest.

The most significant part of the toolkit, however, is the Take the Challenge ruler. Each week for four weeks, participants in the challenge collect the uneaten food from every meal for a week in one container, then measure it with a ruler. Afterwards, they fill out a worksheet to analyze why the food went bad. Participants receive clear containers in which to store food.

Curtis-Murphy said that participants have had their eyes opened by the challenge.

“Someone told me, ‘This is a great confirmation of what I already feared — now I have the facts to back it up,'” she said.

The point is not to shame them, but simply to raise awareness of a common and fixable problem.

“Everyone wastes food,” Curtis-Murphy said. “We’re just trying to offer as many tips and tools as possible.”

The Office of Sustainability works through many different programs all year long to reduce all kinds of waste. Throughout the month of April, the office helps Issaquah schools compete with each other to see who can cut down on waste production.

Anyone interested in taking the challenge should contact the Issaquah Office of Sustainability to obtain a free toolkit.

The Food: Too Good to Waste campaign was started by the Environmental Protection Agency.