Food Waste

According to the National Zero Waste Council’s research on household food waste in Canada, almost 2.3 million tonnes of edible food is wasted each year, costing Canadians in excess of $20 billion. In addition to the economic costs, food waste has substantial environmental impacts. Wasted food squanders the resources used to grow, produce and distribute that food to consumers and produces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Canada’s 2.3 million tonnes of avoidable household food waste is equivalent to 6.9 million tonnes of CO₂ and more than 2 million cars on the road.

Food and other organic material incorrectly put in garbage bins ends up in landfill where it decomposes and produces greenhouse gases like methane. Toronto’s Green Bin program was designed for unavoidable food waste (such as scraps, peels and cores). Putting avoidable food waste, such as leftovers or spoiled food, in the Green Bin creates the need for additional resources and management and increases costs.

Read more about food waste in Canada.

23 per cent of avoidable food waste is caused by the misuse and misunderstanding of ‘best before’ dates. By understanding best before dates, you can save money, reduce waste and protect the environment.

• Best before dates are about how long an unopened product will keep its freshness, taste and nutritional value.
• Expiration dates are about food safety. Do not eat food past the expiration date.

Food will be at its peak freshness, taste and nutritional value before the best before date, however most foods are safe well beyond their best before dates, as long as they are stored properly. Use your senses and ensure the quality of the food packaging is intact before eating. 

Keep food fresh for longer

• Group items together in your fridge that are closer to their best before date, so you remember to use them first when they are at their peak quality.
• Refrigerate or freeze your meat, poultry, and shellfish as soon as you get home from the grocery store and follow the storage instructions on the packaging.
• Keep perishable foods refrigerated below 4°C and frozen foods below -18°C.
• Don’t keep meat, poultry, fish, dairy or cooked leftovers at room temperature for more than two hours.
• You can freeze many foods to make them last longer. Refer to Food Storage A to Z for more tips.

Inspect before you ingest

• Look at the quality of the food packaging before eating.
• Avoid food where the packaging is bulging, torn, ripped, infested, has water damage and food that smells bad, contains mould or shows signs of discolouration.

Learn more about best before dates and food storage tips.

Small changes to your routine can make a big difference to reduce food waste.

Plan ahead

• Spend some time on the weekend planning meals for the following week.
• Check your fridge, freezer and cupboards before shopping. See what needs to be used up and then think of a meal to make with those items.
• To preserve freshness and nutrition, use perishables like seafood and meat earlier in the week and save staples (pasta, dairy, eggs) for later in the week.

Choose what you’ll use

• Once you’ve planned your meals for the week, determine how many fresh fruits and vegetables you need.
• Buy fruits and vegetables loose whenever possible.
• Buy choosing what is right for you – the size, quantity, shape and ripeness of the fruit or vegetable, you can save money by making the food you have go further.
• Buy fresh vegetables in smaller amounts and use frozen vegetables to fill in the gaps.

Keep it fresh

• Keep food fresh longer by storing it in the correct place and setting the temperature in your fridge to 4°C or lower.
• Set one produce drawer to high humidity to store vegetables that wilt, like leafy greens, and another produce drawer to low humidity for fruits and some vegetables that produce ethylene, like apples and peppers.
• Freeze items to make them last longer. Bread can last up to three months in the freezer, chicken can last up to nine months and most vegetables can be frozen for eight months to a year.

Use it up

• Learn different ways to use commonly wasted food.
• Soak wilted vegetables like celery, lettuce, broccoli or carrots in a bowl of ice water for 5-10 minutes to reinvigorate them.
• Fruits and vegetables past their prime are not only great in smoothies but also taste great in baked, stir-fried and grilled dishes.
• A best before date is not the same as an expiration date. If a package has remained unopened even after the best before date, it can still be of good quality and freshness, as long as it has been stored properly.
• Learn or create new recipes which allow you to use the entire food such as making chips from potato peels or pesto with carrot tops.
• Try pickling to preserve fruits and vegetables for a later day.

For more tips and tasty recipes visit the Love Food Hate Waste Canada website.

• More than 99,000 tonnes of food waste (avoidable and unavoidable) is generated annually.
• The average single-family household throws away over 200 kilograms (kg) of food waste (avoidable and unavoidable) a year.
• Avoidable food waste accounts for over 100 kg (over 50 per cent) of all food waste generated by a household per year.
• Fruits and vegetables are the most commonly wasted edible foods (approximately 45 kg generated annually per household).
• Approximately 80 per cent of food waste is put in the Green Bin.

*data based on 2017-2018 audits