A few blips from Nova Scotia crossed my desk last week. This article gave a behind-the-scenes look at fast food restaurants there. From reading it, I learned that the Canadian province has three distinct waste streams–trash, recyclables and organics.
Some restaurants may be scandalously combining the three, but at least it’s an exception to the rule. Way back in 1995, Nova Scotia barred food and other organics from landfills, effective as of November 30,1998. To enable food diversion, the Atlantic province provides centralized compost facilities, and more than 70 percent of Nova Scotians have curbside organic composting service.
In another article, Ralph Martin, the founder of the Organic Agricultural Centre of Canada, discussed abundance on Nova Scotian farms.
When it has come to food production in the past, farmers have focused too much on quantity, Martin said, which has resulted in over production. “It’s been leading to a lot of wasted food, in my opinion.â€
Nova Scotian farmers, like their American counterparts, are literally growing food waste. Unlike the U.S., though, Nova Scotia has a system in place to prevent organics from reaching landfills.
Comments
2 responses to “Nova Scotia News”
Hello Jonathan!
This seems like such a double edged sword, farmers must grow tremendous amounts of food to be able to sell it for a competitive price=stay in business, and yet they are throwing so much right in the garbage. I wonder if we could use all this waste to at least feed our free range friends or encourage the Perdue’s of the world to use recycled food to feed their chickens instead of letting them sit in and eat their own ‘stuff’. That would solve two problems at once, make healthier food and reduce waste!
Thanks for the insight.
Lindsay
Thanks for your insight, Lindsay. Your idea to feed animals with excess crops is a good one. It’s advocated by the EPA in their Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy as a better use of food than composting.
I’m not sure I understand your first point, though. An excessive supply would seem to lower crop prices. Unfortunately, it’s hard to convince farmers to grow less food than they can, given their predilction for abundance and healthy fear of crop failure. So we end up with huge excesses that are stored, to prevent a price-lowering flood of the market. American hunger isn’t caused by a lack of food but poor distribution, a result of good ol’ capitalism.