The Commission on Environmental Cooperation says Canadians are among the heaviest wasters of food on the planet. They say that from farm to table, almost 400 kgs of food is wasted or lost each year per every one of us. In English that’s 880 pounds and that’s a lot of food. That amount creates 21 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from landfills. We’re obviously not very efficient in how we control our use of food in this country. All that waste yet look at the need for food banks that have thousands of users every month in a city the size of Saskatoon. Another report by the three countries in the North American Free Trade Agreement suggests Canadian homes and kitchens continue to generate more and more waste. Environment Canada says federal and provincial governments are working to find solutions to waste issues and trying to increase the amount of organic waste diverted from landfills. Non-hazardous waste is a provincial and local responsibility so the report co-author says it’s tough to get current information on waste and how it’s disposed. Accordingly, some of the information in the report is a few years old but apparently it’s enough to suggest that Canadians, already among the world’s biggest garbage creators, are making more of it. This is not something we can be proud of.
That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.