Please click the links below to access the Food Waste Information Sheets:
Climate Fact Sheet – Food Waste
Food Waste Launch Day April 22
WEEK 1- Food Waste U-UNDERSTANDING
WEEK 2- Food Waste S- SHOP WITH INTENT
Week 3- Food Waste E- EXPECT LEFTOVERS
Week 4- Food Waste I- INVENTORY YOUR PANTRY
Week 5- Food Waste T-TRY PREPPING MEALS AND SNACKS
WEEK 7- Food Waste -L- Labelling
For the past four or five years, the CFUW-Stratford Advocacy Committee has been working with the City of Stratford on various Environmental and Climate Change files. We participated in a campaign to ban single-use plastic water bottles from city buildings and promote the use of municipal tap water; we put together a Power Point presentation titled “Watching our Waste” and made numerous presentations to various groups around town; we wrote a piece titled Greening your Event targeting public event organizers and secured funds from the City’s Energy and Environment Committee to design an attractive four page document, now available on the City website, that helps event organizers draw up comprehensive waste reduction plans needed whenever groups apply for event permits. In early March 2020, the CFUW green team provided shoppers at the Festival mall with information on upcoming launch of the Green Bin program, fielding questions for several hours.
All these efforts have not gone unnoticed by Kate Simpson, Waste Reduction Coordinator for the City of Stratford, who suggested recently that we might want to undertake a campaign to cut down on Food Waste.
In 2018, the FAO stated that if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) after China and the United States. In 2019, a team of 30 world-leading scientists engaged in a study of what would be needed to provide 10 billion people, the expected world population by 2050, with a healthy, sustainable diet while minimizing GHG, saving species from extinction, using only current farmland and preserving water. They were to define what constituted a healthy diet for the world population and the planet. They declared that developed countries will need to alter diets. But they added that food waste must be cut in half worldwide.
According to estimates obtained from the Agriculture and Agri-food Canada website, “more than half of Canada’s food supply is wasted annually and $49.5 billion of that wasted food is avoidable. Food is wasted from farm to plate, through production, processing, distribution, retail, food-service and at home.” The government of Canada will be launching its own campaign on Food Waste Reduction later this year. It will target production, processing, distribution and retail.
CFUW Stratford launched its own Food Waste Reduction campaign on April 22 which coincides with Earth Day 2021. Our campaign will deal with food waste reduction at home. Just as we did for our 16 day campaign on Gender-based violence, regular postings on our Facebook page will cover ways to cut back on food waste in our kitchens. We have also produced a fact sheet on the topic. We are encouraging all our members to participate in this campaign by sharing their thoughts, recipes, and ideas to ensure the success of our campaign.