Big events are a big source of food waste. What does it take to “walk the sustainability walk” when you have to feed hundreds of people?
Earth to conference-goers: According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food waste accounts for about 20% of municipal solid waste in U.S. landfills, but makes up nearly 60% of annual landfill methane emissions. Conferences and events are major contributors to those problems.
Who's doing something about it? West Los Angeles College held a conference last month on climate careers. But they also wanted to make the lunch a model of sustainable practices.
How hard can that be? People need to be fed. That food needs to come from somewhere. It costs money to produce. It has an environmental cost. It won't all be eaten. That waste needs to go somewhere. Also: People really want their coffee.
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How A Conference About Climate Change Tackled Its Own Food Waste (But Didn't Skimp On The Coffee)
Wearing gloves past their wrists, Alekos Tetradis stood guard by a cluster of compost, recycling, and landfill bins. Around them, attendees at this West Los Angeles College climate conference mulled where to toss their trash. If someone went for the wrong bin, Tetradis, a WLAC biochemistry student, stooped, reached in with gusto, and righted the wrong.
“It can seem a little daunting to know what is and isn’t compost, but that’s why I’m here,” Tetradis said.
Tetradis was excited to volunteer for this work at the West Los Angeles’ Climate Careers Conference. The conference’s stated goal was to identify new curriculum and training programs to advance sustainability careers.
LAist’s goal was to watch the food line: Would it be any different from other conferences, with rows of boxed lunches that might get tossed? Would participants be given those red “delicious” apples only to then just throw them away? What does it take to “walk the sustainability walk” when you have to feed hundreds of people?
The plan to spend money
Tetradis stepped away to consult with another volunteer about the coffee cups, which seemed compostable — they looked brown and felt rough, as if made from recycled material. Tetradis and the volunteer determined the inside had a wax coating, so it would fall under recycling.
(Editor's note: After this story published, there was some discussion about whether a coffee cup with a wax coating is recyclable. Tetradis did note that it technically requires a special facility. These things are complicated.)
“We have to care to compost because if you're not thinking about the effects, if you're not thinking about honestly how easy it is to separate your trash before you throw it away, you just toss everything into one bin,” Tetradis said. “It's so much easier.”
Jo Tavares, the director of the California Center for Climate Change Education, said the planning committee began meeting several months in advance, “making sure that we were aligned with practices with the things that we're telling the world that we all need to change. Perhaps not overnight, but culturally speaking, right? Like a culture of reducing waste in general.”
Jo Tavares is the director of the California Center for Climate Change Education at West L.A. college.
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For instance, the committee spent more on aluminum water bottles than plastic — at around $2 an aluminum bottle, four times more. Before the event, participants were also encouraged to bring reusable bottles.
“When you plan an event, you have a budget, and you have to make sure that you try — especially when you're using public money, which is our case — you have to try to minimize costs. But everything that we do has a hidden cost, right,” Tavares said.
For example: the pollution from a single-use plastic water bottle isn’t reflected in the consumer price of 50 cents. And the aluminum water bottles can be recycled.
The necessary provisions of calories and caffeine
Then there’s the first meal of the day: A breakfast of bagels, danishes, muffins, quick breads, cut fruit, and of course, coffee.
But, Tavares said, “we’re still in a situation that I cannot have a conference that starts at 8:30 a.m. and not offer coffee to the participants, right? It's something that culturally would be absolutely unacceptable."
A cart carrying the leftovers from breakfast gets wheeled away.
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Mid-morning, a cart carrying half-full bowls of cut fruit, muffins, and bagels made its exit. Research from the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment and World Wildlife Fund identified those items as among the most common kinds of food waste at events.
The committee decided to pay a local organization to manage the compostable waste and leftover food, which cost $2,000 spread over three days of events. There are composting centers available for drop-off, but Tavares said it made sense to pay another organization to manage the waste and leftovers.
“What is it that is important to you? What are these trade-offs that you're willing to do? And, you know, do they really need to be sacrifices all the time? Are there substitutions or new ways of looking at the way things ought to be?” Tavares said.
A lot of events stick with the tried and true.
“I’m looking at breakfast buffets and hotels — it’s sugar, it’s pastries, and things like that,” Tracy Stuckrath, a certified events planner, told LAist.
Struckrath works for thrive! meetings & events, which specializes in safe, sustainable, and inclusive dining. She also runs a podcast called Eating at a Meeting, and said she asked her audience what they wanted to eat for breakfast.
“They said they were looking for protein and you don’t get that on a continental breakfast,” said Stuckrath, who pointed out adding eggs, bacon, and sausage could add $20 per person.
Adding a lot of meat has other costs, too, though. But it’s still early; we’ll save that discussion for lunch.
California has made it a requirement to divert organic waste from landfills and reduce methane emissions since the passage of SB 1383. By 2025, the state aims to reduce organic waste in landfills by 75% and redirect at least 20% of currently disposed edible food for people to eat.
Alekos Tetradis, a second year West L.A. student
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West L.A. College student Alekos Tetradis sorts through the compost bin.
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To help sort through its own waste and minimize harm, the center conference relied on friendly student volunteers, like Tetradis.
Tetradis talked to LAist about “greenwashing,” how items may be marketed as plant-based, but in reality may be mixed with chemicals that ultimately renders them not compostable. They believe the labeling should be more transparent.
Examining the cutlery at today’s event, Tetradis found out what it was made of: “Oh, the forks are metal! Oh this is perfect.”
Fabio Miranda’s locally based company City Fare catered the event. City Fare has been incorporating more compostable disposables and more vegan options, which he anticipates there will be increasing demand for. In theory, he said, catering for an event means preparing food for a set number of people, so there would be less waste than the uncertainty restaurants face.
With catering for events, however, “there’s always attrition,” Miranda said. “There’s always last minute no-shows even though individuals have RSVP’d, and that’s a little difficult to kind of gauge and estimate. How many people will be no-shows?”
He points out that no one hosting events wants to run out of food either.
Fabio Miranda represents the catering company City Fare at West L.A. college.
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Stuckrath, the events planner who specializes in sustainability, told LAist, “it really comes down to monitoring your attendee arrivals and departures schedules.”
There have been financial and cultural incentives for providing extra food, said Jackie Suggitt, director of capital, innovation and engagement at ReFED, a national nonprofit dedicated to ending food loss and waste. Vendors would need to compensate attendees if food runs out and event attendees “regardless of what we say about our sustainability preferences, we like the options, even if we’re the last one going through the buffet.”
Suggitt said one of the solutions their organization proposes from their own event planning experience and case studies is to actually underproduce. ReFED will produce food for 50% to 85% of the people registered for the event. (By day two of an event, “No one actually comes down for breakfast, they just want coffee,” she said.)
“I mean, that's hard, right? Like over the fear of running out of food. You may run out of one of your dishes and that happens. Right?” Suggitt said.
She observed this earth friendly mindset could be acceptable at a conference about food waste, but elsewhere “can be kind of a difficult norm to break away from.”
The environmentally conscious plant-based lunch
The climate conference lunch was a taco bar buffet spread with traditional fixings of rice, beans, tortillas, guacamole, salsa, and, among other items, plant-based beef fajitas.
Vegan beef fajitas are served for lunch as part of the taco buffet bar.
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Meat and plant-based preferences is something the organizer Tavares did wrestle with, worrying that students, particularly high school students attending this week’s events, may not eat the vegan options.
But Jade Allison, a conference participant, said the plant-based lunch menu showed the organizers are aligned in practice with their sustainable messages.
Some liked the plant-based meat. “I love rice and beans, and I like the Beyond Meat steak,” said Andrea Abrego, a West L.A. student who participated in an internship panel.
Ayman Sharafat, though, preferred a meat option. He's doing a fellowship in Texas with the Climate Action Network, but originally hails from Jordan. While the lunch was “delicious and healthy,” when asked how he would design the ideal conference lunch, he said, “some people like lamb, some people like pork, beef, and chicken.”
The necessary origin of the food
Seated at a round table, conference participant Beth Yirga chimed in to a conversation about the food’s origins and final destination.
“I want to know the history of my plate…I want every piece of my plate to be connected to a community that is doing this work to heal the planet," Yirga said. "And I'm, we're, supporting their efforts and nourishing our bodies at the same time.”
Mariela Bazán, chief sustainability officer for the Events Industry Council, a global organization that has established sustainable event standards, calls this “social procurement.”
Social procurement means “where are you purchasing from? Do you have a policy of sourcing from small and medium enterprises? Are you looking for diversity in your supply chain? Are you looking for fair labor, not child labor, in your supply chain?” Bazán said.
She said in the past, when considering sustainability, the events industry used to focus on materials like plastic water bottles and reducing waste, but over time, considering the climate impact of travel and social procurement has grown in importance. That means considering things like chocolate certifications, fair trade coffee, and other elements of sourcing (seafood, for example, can be notorious to track, but one can start the conversation by asking).
The final fate of the waste
Not all of this conference’s food would make its way onto people’s ceramic lunch plates.
“I think that is a hidden side of something like conference lunches and buffets that we don't really get to know,” said attendee Allison, who wanted to know what would happen to the leftovers. “Like a product’s life cycle and lifespan is much larger than it being on a plate in front of me. And I think, like, for sustainability, we have to shift our mindset to incorporate the full picture more often.”
CCCCE contracted the organization Compostable to bring the compost to partner farms and urban growing spaces within 10 miles of the event, and redistribute the leftovers to Free Food Collective, a local organization which delivers food to unhoused people in West L.A.
Becca Scheuer takes away the leftover food and compost. The leftover food will go to a local organization that will distribute the food to unhoused people and the compost will go to partner farms and urban growing spaces.
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At the end of the day, Becca Scheuer from Compostable weighed the food waste and leftover food — approximately 60 pounds of food waste to become compost, about 80 pounds of leftover food to be redistributed.
“So that is great,” Scheuer said while loading up the pickup truck. “None of that is in the landfill.”
What’s next: The temporary order expires in 14 days. The court battle will continue to play out, with further decisions by the judge expected in the coming weeks, after more arguments from both sides.
The context: In halting childcare and welfare benefits to hundreds of thousands of low-income Californians, the Trump administration wrote that “recent federal prosecutions” are driving concerns about “systemic fraud.” But an LAist review found fraud in the targeted programs appears to be a tiny fraction of the total spending. Prosecutions that have been brought around child care benefits amount to a small fraction of 1% of the federal childcare funding California has received, according to a search of all case announcements in the state. When pressed for details about what specific prosecutions justify the freeze in California, administration officials have offered few specifics.
Federal judge orders LA to pay $1.8M in settlement
Makenna Sievertson
has been covering the case and attending federal hearings in downtown L.A. since at least March 2024.
Published January 9, 2026 5:02 PM
A view of L.A. City Hall in downtown.
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Topline:
A federal judge has ordered Los Angeles to pay more than $1.8 million in attorneys’ fees and costs to the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights and other organizations that sued the city over what it deemed an inadequate response to the homelessness crisis.
The details: In addition to $1.6 million in attorneys’ fees and $5,000 in costs to L.A. Alliance, the judge awarded about $200,000 in fees and $160 in costs to the Los Angeles Catholic Worker and Los Angeles Community Action Network.
Why now: The city is appealing the decision.
Why it matters: In his order, released Tuesday, the judge compared the recent award to the millions of taxpayer dollars city officials agreed to pay an outside law firm representing L.A.in the settlement.
Read on ... for more about this week's order.
A federal judge has ordered Los Angeles to pay more than $1.8 million in attorneys’ fees and costs to the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights and other organizations that sued the city over what it deemed an inadequate response to the homelessness crisis.
The city is appealing the decision.
The details
L.A. Alliance is a group of business owners and residents who sued the city and county of Los Angeles in 2020 in an effort to push both governments to provide more shelter to unhoused people in the region.
The city of L.A. settled with the plaintiffs in 2022, and U.S. District Judge David O. Carter is overseeing the city’s progress in keeping up with the terms of that agreement. The judge found the city breached its agreement in multiple ways in a ruling last summer.
Specifically, the judge found that the city did not provide a plan for how it intends to create 12,915 shelter beds, as promised, by 2027. The court also found the city “flouted” its responsibilities by failing to provide accurate, comprehensive data when requested and did not provide evidence to support the numbers it was reporting, according to court documents.
In addition to $1.6 million in attorneys’ fees and $5,000 in costs to L.A. Alliance, Carter awarded about $200,000 in fees and $160 in costs to the Los Angeles Catholic Worker and Los Angeles Community Action Network.
The organizations are considered “intervenors” in the suit, representing people experiencing homelessness on Skid Row. Their attorneys include those from the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.
Why it matters
In his order, released Tuesday, Carter compared the recent award to the millions of taxpayer dollars city officials agreed to pay an outside law firm representing L.A. in the settlement.
“It has fallen to plaintiff, intervenors, and journalists to point out the deficiencies in the city’s reporting,” Carter wrote, referring to data the city is required to report to the court as part of the settlement.
“Plaintiff and intervenors must be compensated for this,” he said.
The city’s response
Attorneys representing the city filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Thursday.
L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto’s office did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment by phone or email.
Shayla Myers, senior attorney with the Unhoused People's Justice Project at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, told LAist the intervenors participated in the case without compensation “because it's incredibly important given what is at stake in these proceedings that unhoused folks have a voice.”
Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for L.A. Alliance, told LAist he’s thrilled the court is imposing accountability on the city, including sanctions for violating the settlement agreement. But Umhofer said he’s saddened that L.A. Alliance is going to have to keep fighting to hold the city to its promises.
“The obvious city strategy here is hire a big, good law firm to fight on absolutely every front in hopes that the plaintiffs, the intervenors or the court will ultimately give up trying to hold the city accountable,” he said.
What's next
The parties are scheduled to appear in federal court in downtown L.A. on Monday, when a hearing will resume to determine whether the judge will hold the city of Los Angeles in contempt of court.
Carter has said in documents that he’s concerned “the city has demonstrated a continuous pattern of delay” in meeting its obligations with court orders under the settlement and that the “delay continues to this day.”
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Gab Chabrán
covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.
Published January 9, 2026 3:52 PM
Asha Stark's Hot Grease specializes in Black fish fry with a side of social justice.
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Topline:
Smorgasburg L.A. reopens this Sunday with 13 new food vendors joining the downtown market's annual grand reopening at the Row.
Why now: The January grand reopening with new vendors is a longstanding tradition that kicks off the year ahead. Vendors apply through Smorgasburg's website, and the team meets with every applicant to taste their food before acceptance. Competition remains fierce, with many more applicants than available spots. This year marks the market's 10th anniversary celebration in June.
Why it matters: The new vendor class demonstrates the resilience of L.A.'s independent food scene, following a challenging year for the restaurant industry, with concepts ranging from a Grammy-nominated producer's Persian-influenced pizza to Southern fried fish honoring Black migration history.
Every January, the open-air downtown food fair reopens after its winter break and announces new additions to its carefully selected group of regular vendors.
This year’s new vendor class demonstrates the resilience of L.A.'s independent food scene, ranging from a Grammy-nominated producer's Persian-influenced pizza to Southern fried fish celebrating Black American culinary traditions, to an LAist 2025 Tournament of Cheeseburger heavyweight contender.
The reopening also marks the start of Smorgasburg LA's 10th anniversary year, and will feature 41 returning vendors, who've helped build the regular event into a fun, family-friendly opportunity to try new, often cutting-edge food you may not be familiar with.
Doors open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at DTLA’s The Row, with free entry and free parking for the first two hours.
A new year
General manager Zach Brooks said this is his favorite time of year. "We add the new vendors at the beginning of the new year, everyone's excited."
Vendors apply through Smorgasburg's website, and the team meets with every applicant to taste their food before acceptance. Brooks said it's not a vetting process like "Shark Tank" but rather a matter of seeing if it's a good fit. Competition remains fierce, with many more applicants than available spots.
"I think it's just a testament to L.A. and the resilience of people who love this business and have a passion for it, and are going to continue to persevere and start their businesses and want to be out there selling food," Brooks said.
Here are a few highlights:
Viral orange chicken sandwich
Long Beach-based Terrible Burger becomes Smorgasburg's new permanent burger vendor after standout appearances at LAist's Tournament of Cheeseburgers and the market's rotating Smorgasburger Stand. The smashburger pop-up, run by husband-and-wife team Nicole and Ryan Ramirez, specializes in burgers that draw from pop culture and global influences. They've made waves with a Korean barbecue burger topped with bulgogi barbecue sauce and a viral orange chicken sandwich, previously available only at their Tuesday night residency at Long Beach's Midnight Oil, making its L.A. debut Sunday.
Terrible Burger's viral orange chicken sandwich makes its LA debut at Smorgasburg after being available only in Long Beach.
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"We have been big Smorgasburg fans for a really long time before we even started Terrible Burger. We would go to Smorgasburg on dates, just eat and hang out. And it was just always a little dream of, "oh, what if we ever sold food here?" Nicole Ramirez said.
Crispy fried snapper and thick-cut fries
Orange County-based Hot Grease, run by Asha Starks, is among four vendors graduating from residencies to permanent status. The Southern fried fish pop-up celebrates Black American history through food that honors Starks' family heritage.
"Folks often forget that there are Black folks in Orange County. My family came to Orange County during the second wave of the Great Migration, and they settled in Santa Ana... my food is very cultural. And the story, I feel like, is just as important to highlight," Starks said.
Hot Grease's crispy buttermilk fried snapper with thick-cut fries and "Ill Dill" tartar sauce.
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Hot Grease serves crispy buttermilk fried snapper with thick-cut fries and small-batch sauces like "Ill Dill" tartar. Honoring the fish fry's history as a site of mutual aid, Starks directs 3% of sales to the Potlikker Line, Hot Grease's reproductive justice mutual aid fund. For January, she's added fish and grits, black-eyed peas and collard greens.
Pizza with a Persian twist
Mamani Pizza brings studio-born energy to Smorgasburg LA with pies featuring Persian-inspired creativity.
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Mamani Pizza, from the Grammy-nominated producer Farsi, part of the music production team Wallis Lane, started making Neapolitan-style pizzas at his West L.A. recording studio a year ago. What began as late-night pies for friends and artists became an underground hit. Most pizzas are traditional, but Farsi adds Persian touches like The Mamani, topped with ground wagyu koobideh, roasted Anaheim chilis, Persian herbs and pomegranate molasses.
Cato Hernández
covers important issues that affect the everyday lives of Southern Californians.
Published January 9, 2026 3:48 PM
Potholes pop up after rain because water seeps into the road's crevices and weakens the foundation. Cars driving over it exacerbates the damage, leading to more cracks.
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Topline:
All that rain didn’t just flood L.A. County streets, it chewed up our roads. You’re likely driving over more potholes than usual, so what do you do if your car gets damaged from one? You could get the government to pay for it.
How it works: You’ll want to take pictures of the pothole and your car. Then, submit a claim form. Personal property damage claims have a six-month filing period, and you’ll have to pay out-of-pocket first.
Unincorporated L.A. County: If the damage happened in an unincorporated area, you’ll have to print and mail this claim form.
Highway/freeways in L.A. or Ventura counties: For Caltrans damage claims, follow the filing directions here.
Manage your expectations: Keep in mind, this isn’t a quick way to cash. Claims can take months. You’ll also have to prove the agency was aware of the problem before your incident, such as by looking at street maintenance records for your area. Here are tips from the now-defunct site LAPotholes.com.
What’s next: Potholes continue to plague the city of L.A., and that’s probably not ending soon. In the next budget, StreetsLA (aka Bureau of Street Services) is proposing to prioritize funding for “large asphalt repair,” which means patching over sections rather than fully repaving streets, which some argue will lead to worse roads.
