Asking for a meal to be boxed up to go is a question asked frequently by some restaurant goers but for many others the final destination of their food is the trash bin. Ottawa city council recently approved a motion to direct a food waste initiative report to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for consideration.
The report originates from the National Zero Waste Council and seeks to limit food wasted by restaurants. This will be done through the implementation of a tax incentive to encourage businesses to donate their extra food to the homeless. The National Zero Waste Council was founded by Metro Vancouver in 2013 and strives to unite governments and businesses in the fight against waste in Canada.
Toronto Coun. Shelley Carroll has been a board member of the National Zero Waste Council since it was founded and is a co-lead for the Food Working Group. Carroll is passionate about educating the public and the federal government on food waste reduction strategies.
“The real answer to reducing the impact of waste on our environment is reducing packaging and reducing waste that happens at the producer level,” she says. “All of those things have to be done nationally.”
The National Zero Waste Council is also asking other municipalities for support in the hope that the food waste initiative will eventually be implemented nationally.
A 2012 report by the Household Food Waste in Canada reported that about 13 per cent of Canadians experience a level of food insecurity and 64.5 per cent of Ontarians who rely on social assistance are food insecure. The number of Canadians facing food insecurities indicates an ongoing need for food support. Another study done by the Conference Board of Canada earlier this year found that about 169,400 tonnes of edible food is disposed annually.
“While we’re throwing out food the federal government is pressed constantly in the name of poverty reduction to fund various food security groups,” she says. “What if you were incenting delivering food to them that would otherwise be tossed out?”
Carroll says that a lot of food is wasted before it even leaves the farm and continues to be wasted as it makes its way to the grocery store.
Doug Parsonage, general manager and partner of the restaurant Fauna on 425 Bank St., says that the objective for a lot of restaurants is to not waste food.
“For potato peels that would normally get thrown in the garbage, we actually dehydrate and add them into our potato bread for flavour,” he says.
However, Parsonage says that the unfinished food from customers gets thrown directly into the garbage.
“The highest amount of food that does get wasted is by the customers that choose not to eat it.”
The food waste initiative will be discussed for consideration at the upcoming annual general meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.