According to Metro Vancouver’s recent ad in the Georgia Straight, about 30 per cent of curbside garbage is food waste. I find this amazing especially given the amount of publicity given to the topic. Are you among those contributing to the 30 per cent? If so, why not start placing food scraps into a ‘green waste’ bin. It’s easy and if done properly will not create odours, or flies in the house, etc. In the summer I freeze remains in a brown bag and mix in with other yard waste on pick up day. I always put produce remains in my yard compost bin and in the spring the resulting compost is put on our garden. This is recycling at its best, don’t you think?
Grant Baldwin, director of the 2014 documentary Just Eat It, claims from the time food leaves the farm into one’s stomach, almost half of it ends in trash. This translates into billions of dollars of good food being tossed out each year in North America. Food in landfills creates unhealthy greenhouse gas emissions. I doubt that incineration is better for the environment. As you may know, the building of a new incinerator in the region is a contentious issue and one that I have addressed in previous columns.
Because of their concern over food waste, Grant and his partner Jen Rustemeyer pledged to quit grocery shopping for six months and to survive on food that otherwise would be discarded. Just Eat It chronicles the fulfillment of their pledge and is extremely enlightening and entertaining. Grant ate so well that he gained weight. The couple never got sick on the food. They entertained with ‘found’ food and were able to give some away.
It is disturbing to learn that while one in 10 North Americans are ‘food insecure’, others pass by items which are perfectly safe to eat and items which are less than perfect. Store managers could contribute to less food waste by educating people and checking shelves for food that could be discounted and sold, or given away to those in need, rather than chucked.
If you have not yet seen Just Eat it I highly recommend that you so do. I also recommend Grant and Jen’s other film, The Clean Bin Project. Together these will open your eyes to simple changes that can be made to waste less and in the process contribute to a better environment. Keep in mind that “Hey! Food isn’t Garbage.”
