People in Toronto waste A LOT of food. However, over 50 per cent of the food wasted in Toronto single-family households is avoidable.
There is some food waste that you can’t avoid. Things like bones, tea bags, coffee grinds and fruit peels are inevitably going to be thrown away, but the City of Toronto says that more than half of single-family home food waste in Toronto is avoidable. This includes leftovers and spoiled food that was at one point edible.
According to the city, over 99,000 tonnes of avoidable and unavoidable food waste is generated every year in Toronto, and the average single-family household throws away over 200 kg of food annually.
City officials say people often waste food because of factors like overshopping, incorrect food storage, and poor meal planning. It’s estimated that avoidable food waste costs the average household in Canada more than $1,300 annually.
“Fruits and vegetables are the most wasted edible food, with approximately 45 kilograms generated annually by each household according to data based on our 2017-2018 audits,” Acting Director, Policy and Outreach, Solid Waste Management Services Toronto Charlotte Ueta said in a statement to Now Toronto.
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Research from Canada’s National Zero Waste Council shows that nearly 2.3 million tonnes of edible food is wasted each year, and it’s costing Canadians more than $21 billion!
The council found that of the over 2 million tonnes of food wasted, the most prominently wasted (by weight) include:
- Vegetables: 30%
- Fruit: 15%
- Leftovers: 13%
- Bread and Bakery: 9%
- Dairy and Eggs: 7%
That works out to the daily wasting of:
- 130,000 heads of lettuce,
- 1,300,000 tomatoes,
- 2,600,000 potatoes,
- 650,000 loaves of bread,
- 1,300,000 apples,
- 640,000 bananas,
- 1,000,000 cups of milk
- 470,000 eggs
In addition to costing a pretty penny, there are also environmental consequences for wasting good food. In addition to wasting the resources used to grow and distribute the food, wasted food produces greenhouse gas emissions that impact climate change.
The City of Toronto says that 2.3 million tonnes of good food wasted by Canadians every year is equivalent to 6.9 million tonnes of CO2 and more than 2 million cars on the road.
According to the city, there are also big problems with the way people are disposing of the food they don’t consume. Food and other organic materials put in garbage cans end up in landfills, decomposing and producing greenhouse gasses like methane.
Toronto is urging people to use the city’s green bin program to properly dispose of their unavoidable food waste.
Ueta said that the city currently diverts approximately 170,000 tonnes of food waste through its green bin program, green bin program where residents can put unavoidable food scraps such as eggshells, fruit peels, coffee grinds, tea bags and more.
However, officials say that using green bins for avoidable food waste, like spoiled or leftover food, creates the need for additional resources and increases costs.
LOVE FOOD, HATE WASTE
In order to combat the issue of food waste in Toronto, the city partnered with Canada’s National Zero Waste Council, as well as other government organizations and major retailers, for the Love Food Hate Waste Canada (LFHWC) campaign, which launched in 2019. On the LFHWC website, residents can find tips to help reduce wastage and save money by making small changes to their day-to-day activities. This includes planning your meals ahead, buying only what you need, and storing your food properly in order to avoid it going bad prematurely, using your leftover food in new meals, and more.
