Las Vegas, strip, buffets, waste, food, pigs, farm
Las Vegas has many taglines, but “waste not, want not” isn’t one of them. However, one family has done their darndest to bring a little “reduce, reuse, recycle” to Sin City. Instead of letting copious amounts of prime rib, lobster tail and fruit tarts go to waste, Bob Combs carts buffet leftovers to his 160-acre pig farm where his piglets eat like kings.
The tradition started in 1963 with Combs’ father, who thought of the idea while celebrating his birthday in “Lost Wages” (heh heh). His plan: truck away buffet leftovers from the Strip to simultaneously provide free waste removal for the restaurants and free food for his hogs. Worked like a charm, and Bob Combs ultimately took over the operation from his father. Everybody’s a winner! (Though the pigs tend to get a bit haughty with this fancy diet—according to Combs “Once you teach them to eat food scraps, they’ll turn their nose up to soybean and corn.”)
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than one quarter of the nation’s food supply goes to waste each year, and it costs the U.S. $1 billion annually to dispose of this excess food. Those are straight-up shocking numbers. So cheers to you, Farmer Bob. Ingenuity like yours helps mitigate our waste and sustainability issues—and, if massively multiplied, might save us all from doom!
Image: commons.wikimedia.org
