Just assembling my morning (Fairtrade : ) coffee, when I stumbled upon this lovely piece by Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC:
“Experts say that curbing household food waste starts at the grocery store, where people tend to make impulse purchases and often buy more than they need. (iStock)”
On the heels of the shocking recent revelation that it’s Canadians at home who are wasting over half of the “$27 billion of food wasted countrywide.”
$27 billion worth of food. Last year, the World Food Program (WFP) purchased 2.4 million metric tonnes of food at a price of US$1.23 billion. “On average, WFP aims to bring food assistance to more than 90 million people in 75 countries.”
“WFP’s post-emergency and development operations are built around projects focused on preventing hunger taking hold in the future and breaking the cycle of hunger which is at its root.”
How many people could be fed with even half of the $27 billion of food Canadians waste every year?
Moral of the story: Read your national news, they have good ideas at times. Besides which, your taxes pay for them!
By the way, your taxes also pay trucks to haul away all that wasted food, process that waste (less than 1/4 of which was “diverted from disposal“), and, in most cases, clean up the effluent oozing out from the dumps that we decorate with public parklands (that your taxes also paid for in order to cover up our waste!). Of that buried waste, organics make up a whopping 40%!
To be clear, the term “organics” refers to more than just food waste (yard waste, for example), but that just means we should also be asking: WHY IS YARD WASTE EVEN IN THE WASTE SYSTEM IN THE FIRST PLACE?!!?!?!?!?
Another day, another post…
*****Update*****
Recent UK-based study claims half of the world’s food is wasted!
Hot tip! Plan your week’s menu, but dedicate one night to leftovers. I always have too much for at least one meal, and as long as they are kept in the fridge, leftovers should be good for the week. I often “repurpose” my leftovers to avoid eating the same meal twice. Perhaps a new page on leftover recipes is in order…
Read more tips, that just might work, here.
Live within limits without limiting life
Like this post? Follow me!
Environmentalist Egalitarian Engineer 
You have the floor