In the fight against food wastage, Clark County has just flung open the pantry door and is eyeing a full plate of initiatives to prevent good grub from going to waste. The county council just stamped the dates April 1-7 as Food Waste Prevention Week, hitching their wagon to a global push to curb the stomach-turning amount of edibles heading to the trash heap.

With the startling fact that the Washington area is tossing out around 1.1 million tons of food waste annually a staggering 400,000 tons of which could have been a meal on someone's table, this isn't just about leftovers. Nationally, it’s said that up to 35% of all food produced is chucked rather than chowed down, according to Clark County's public announcement.

But it’s not all doom and gloom on the waste front. The folks behind the county’s Solid Waste Education and Outreach are getting hands-on, doling out strategies to residents on how to sideline the waste and bring back the taste. They’re kicking things off with a podcast series. This audio feast served up in partnership with KougRadio, will dish out five helpings of conversation about why we're tossing out the good stuff and how we can all get a bit thriftier with our thyme.

The podcast isn't just some half-baked idea; it’s teaming with local food waste warriors like Pete DuBois of Clark County Composter Recycler and Stacey Tigner-Loy with WSU Clark County Extension SNAP-Ed Nutrition Education Program. This duo and their guests will be sprinkling in tips for families looking to pinch pennies and nix food waste, as per the details laid out in the county’s proclamation. Maybe this time around, we can learn something and save some change while we're at it, because let's face it, nobody is a fan of wasting cash or casserole.

So, while Food Waste Prevention Week might not get the same buzz as Shark Week, it's got something just as sharp—ideas to chop down waste before it bites us in the wallet. Clark County’s initiative may just have the recipe to get people to switch off autopilot in the kitchen and start a real conversation about those bits and bites we leave behind.