Supermarkets In Quebec Find Innovative Ways to Divert from Landfills

by | Mar 14, 2017

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Supermarkets in Quebec can now donate their unsold produce, meat and baked goods to local food banks, which has the primary goals of both stocking food banks and keeping edible foods from being sent off to landfills.

The Guardian is reporting the efforts could prevent 7,000 tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.  That is the equivalent of taking 1,500 cars off the road each year, it adds.

The so-called Supermarket Recovery Program launched in 2013 as a two-year pilot project. Now, 177 supermarkets donate more than 2.5m kg of food that would have otherwise been discarded, says the Guardian.

“The idea behind it is: ‘Hey, we’ve got enough food in Quebec to feed everybody, let’s not be throwing things out,’” Sam Watts, of Montreal’s Welcome Hall Mission, which offers several programs for people in need, told Global News on Friday, as quoted in the Guardian.“Let’s be recuperating what we can recuperate and let’s make sure we get it to people who need it.

“There is enough food in the province of Quebec to feed everybody who needs food. Our challenge has always been around management and distribution,” he added. “Supermarkets couldn’t accommodate individual food banks coming to them one by one by one.”

Food bank usage has risen by 35% since 2008, says the story. That means it reaches 172,000 people a month.

The program expects 600 groceries in the province to eventually take part, says the Guardian.

To see the full story, click here. 

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