Food waste is not a disposal problem. It is stored energy we keep throwing away. FRSH exists to prove that — and to hand students the tools to act on it.
Food waste and energy are taught as separate subjects. They are the same subject, seen from two ends.
Roughly one third of the food produced for people is lost or wasted — about 13% along the supply chain and 19% at retail and household level. With it goes the water, land and energy used to grow it.
In landfill, food breaks down without oxygen and releases methane — a greenhouse gas far more potent than CO₂ over the short term. The energy is lost, and the climate pays for it.
Everything FRSH does sits under one of three pillars. Nothing else.
Open, free knowledge: how anaerobic digestion works and how anyone can understand — or build — a home digester.
Real proof at student scale. Campus biodigesters that run in the real world, documented so every school can replicate them.
Turning knowledge into a movement: members, chapters and measurable collective impact across campuses.
Pilots follow a fixed ladder. Each rung exists for a reason: safety first, and evidence before scale.
A one-week campus waste audit establishes the baseline before any equipment is built.
A sealed 20–50 L school-scale digester with gas measurement — student-safe, documented and replicated.
Anything beyond that runs with a university or lab partner before gas storage scales up.
Every figure on our target board is the sum of chapter goals, set from measured waste audits — never invented at the top. We publish what we actually measure, including what underperformed.
Credibility is the only thing a student non-profit really has. These boundaries are not modesty — they are the rules we hold ourselves to.
No products, no licences, no fees. Nothing about our advice is influenced by a sale.
Home-scale digesters are genuinely useful for heat, lighting and small loads. They will not power a building, and we say so.
Methane is flammable. Anything beyond a sealed school-scale digester runs with a university or lab partner first.
Every figure is derived from a stated assumption and a citable source — and labelled honestly as a target or a measurement.
Applications are open for members, chapter leads and core-team roles. The form takes about five minutes, and a founder reads every one.