Year after year, about 1.2 million tonnes of edible food are wasted, nearly half of which end up in the province’s landfills, shows a study by Recyc-Québec unveiled on Wednesday.
According to the organization, which is based on 2019 data, approximately 7.5 million tonnes of food enter the Quebec food system each year, which represents approximately 2.43 kg of food per Quebecer per day.
The vast majority of this food, approximately 4.43 million tonnes, is consumed by 8.5 million Quebecers, while approximately 1.9 million tonnes is made up of inedible parts, which leaves 1.2 million tonnes of edible food wasted, or about 16% of all the food that comes into the province.
“Food is lost through the food chain. […] It compares quite well to the Canadian portrait that was done a few years ago, which estimated 18% food wasted. It’s really a global problem,” said Sophie Langlois Blouin, Vice-President – Performance of operations at Recyc-Québec, discussing the conclusions of the study with the QMI Agency.
To reduce this waste, solutions exist. Thus, approximately 23% of wasted edible food ends up in compost, while others are reused in biomethanization (5%), in animal feed (9%) or recovered in other ways. The fact remains that 47% of food ends up in the dump, in addition to 2% in the sewers and another 2% in the incinerator.
But the fact remains that to improve their balance sheet, Quebecers must first learn to better manage their purchases.
“No one likes wasting food, whether at home or in business. It has a financial impact. By throwing them, we lose all the resources associated with them. The pandemic has also brought about an awareness of how much we want to reduce waste, ”judges Ms. Langlois Blouin.
“It is sure that what we ideally want is to reduce at the source. This is true both in industry and at home,” she continued, suggesting better planning of purchases, both in business and at home, to reduce waste.
Nevertheless, from 2010 to 2019, Quebecers have improved by learning to waste less, noted Recyc-Québec.
“I think it’s going in the right direction,” encouraged Sophie Langlois Blouin, whose organization plans to produce a new inventory of food destinations within three to five years to assess the progress of Quebecers.