von Massow Michael, Parizeau Kate, Gallant Monica, Wickson Mark, Haines Jess, Ma David W L, Wallace Angela, Carroll Nicholas, Duncan Alison M
Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada.
Department of Geography, Environment, and Geomatics, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada.
Front Nutr. 2019 Sep 4;6:143. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2019.00143. eCollection 2019.
The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has estimated that Canadian households waste 85 kg of food per person annually. Food waste has become an increasingly common focus for policy, regulation, interventions, and awareness-raising efforts in Canada. However, there is still a relative dearth of data to inform such decision-making processes or to provide narratives to contextualize behavior change efforts. In this paper, we describe the results of an uncommonly detailed observational study of household food waste. A total of 94 families with young children living in Guelph, Ontario chose to participate in this study. Over the course of multiple weeks, we collected data on their food purchases, food consumption, and waste generation. All three streams of waste (garbage, recycling, and organic waste) were audited and the food type, degree of avoidability, and weight of each individual component of the organic waste stream was recorded. Using this highly granular data set, we found that the average household in our study generated approximately 2.98 kg of avoidable food waste per week. This estimate was then contextualized in terms of economic losses (dollar value), nutritional losses (calories, vitamins, and minerals) and environmental impacts (global warming potential, land, and water usage). In short, weekly avoidable food waste per household was calculated to be equivalent to $18.01, 3,366 calories, and 23.3 kg of CO. These multiple valuation frameworks, which are based in detailed observations of family food behaviors rather than estimations derived from system-wide data, will enable more informed and urgent conversations about policy, programming, and interventions in order to reduce the volume of wasted food at the consumer level.
环境合作委员会（CEC）估计，加拿大家庭每人每年浪费85公斤食物。食物浪费已日益成为加拿大政策、法规、干预措施及提高认识努力的常见焦点。然而，仍相对缺乏数据来为这类决策过程提供信息，或为行为改变努力提供背景说明。在本文中，我们描述了一项关于家庭食物浪费的异常详细的观察性研究结果。安大略省圭尔夫市共有94个有幼儿的家庭选择参与这项研究。在多个星期的时间里，我们收集了他们的食物购买、食物消费和废物产生数据。对所有三种废物流（垃圾、回收物和有机废物）进行了审计，并记录了有机废物流中每个单独成分的食物类型、可避免程度和重量。利用这个高度细化的数据集，我们发现我们研究中的平均家庭每周产生约2.98公斤可避免的食物浪费。然后，根据经济损失（美元价值）、营养损失（卡路里、维生素和矿物质）和环境影响（全球变暖潜能值、土地和水资源使用）对这一估计进行了背景分析。简而言之，每户每周可避免的食物浪费经计算相当于18.01美元、3366卡路里和23.3公斤二氧化碳。这些基于对家庭食物行为的详细观察而非全系统数据得出的估计值的多重估值框架，将有助于就政策、规划和干预措施进行更明智且紧迫的讨论，以减少消费者层面的食物浪费量。
