Love Food, Not Waste

This semester, as part of the Green Reps, I learned a lot about waste, recycling, and compost. As part of the program, I participated in a composting campaign and audit in the Dining Hall. This will be a two part blog, where I first talk about the problems of food waste, and then I'll share my experience volunteering in uOttawa's Dining Hall. 

To start off, when I talk about food waste, I mean what is edible food that is not eaten, but instead is discarded into the compost or landfill. I am not talking about the smaller percentage of items that is inedible such as bones or banana peels. 

How Bad is Food Waste Really?

Food waste is one of the top contributors of greenhouses gasses and a huge source of emissions causing climate change. When food is wasted, it releases a gas called methane as it decomposes. This gas is extremely harmful to the atmosphere and has a large impact on the environment as well as the food supply chain, cost of food, and food security (Sanders, 2021). World Wildlife Foundation puts this into perspective with their stat that in just the USA, the production of lost or wasted food creates the equivalent of 32.6 million cars’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions (WWF, n.d.).

Household Food Waste in Canada

Canadians are no better at food waste. It is estimated that approximately 58% of all food that is produced for human consumption is wasted annually in Canada (Arrell Food Institute, 2022). This costs $49.5 billion! Love Food Hate Waste goes even further with a study showing that Canadians waste upwards of 2.3 million tonnes of food every year.

Isn’t Composting Enough?

A lot of people feel that by composting their leftover food they aren’t wasting it. This isn’t the case and there's actually a term for it, the “licensing effect”, whereby people have less inhibition to waste food when they know it’s being composted rather than being sent to a landfill (Sanders, 2021). This phenomenon encourages waste and contributes to the problem. 

Now let’s say that all compost was being used and that it contributed to agriculture with 100% percent efficiency, it still makes no sense to keep growing excessive amounts of food just to then compost it again. Composting is not the solution to food waste that people believe it to be. Even in this scenario there is still waste in the form of water, money, labour, and space. This attitude of composting being a great solution is something I observed on campus in the Dining Hall at uOttawa. A lot of students are accustomed to taking more food than they can eat and then composting the leftovers afterwards. There were quite a few leftovers and even up to 8 or 10 full plates wasted in as little as 30 minutes. This is due to a lack of awareness and is not the fault of students but nevertheless they are contributing to unnecessary food waste.

The goal should be to reduce the amount of food wasted, which in turn reduces the amount of food that needs to be produced and that creates a much more sustainable approach for our food system. 

What are some easy tricks to reduce waste?

• Plan your meals and make a grocery shopping list, so you only buy the things you need. Be sure to look at what you have already before grocery shopping. You'll be less likely to buy extra food that will get left in the fridge until it goes bad.
• Use a freezer to preserve food, you don't have to eat it immediately and you can use it later instead of letting it expire. This especially comes in handy if you buy in bulk or if you have leftovers you don't plan on eating right away.
• Use your leftovers: there are apps and websites that can give you recipes based on what foods you have in your fridge like Big Oven, Supercook, MyFridgeFood, Epicurious, and Allrecipes.
• Try cooking methods like baking and blending: Instead of throwing out vegetables and fruits that look unappetizing but are still edible you can use these cooking methods to make them more appetizing or use them in different ways. Soups and stews are great options to toss in a bunch of different veggies and have it taste really good!  
• Planning on going away? Donate your food or share it with family and friends.

References

Arrell Food Institute. (2022). Monitoring and Measuring Food Loss and Waste in Canada, A Snapshot. https://arrellfoodinstitute.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2022_FOOD-WASTE-REPORT_ARRELL_WEB.pdf

World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). Fight Climate Change by Preventing Food Waste. www.worldwildlife.org/stories/fight-climate-change-by-preventing-food-waste#:~:text=But%20wasted%20food%20isn’t,more%20potent%20than%20carbon%20dioxide.

Love Food Hate Waste Canada. (2022). Food Waste in the Home. https://lovefoodhatewaste.ca/about/food-waste/

Sanders, Heather. (2021, May 26). Raising Awareness and Opportunities to Reduce Food Waste. SFU Research. www.sfu.ca/research/scholarly-impacts/raising-awareness-and-opportunities-reduce-food-waste

~ jennifer walsh, green reps student