Quebec Waste Reduction Week aims to keep food out of trash

Quebec's Waste Reduction Weekkicked off over theweekend and this year'sfocus is cutting down on the amount of food that ends up in the trash.

Environmental group Action RE-Buts says about a third of food in Canada goes to waste. They say not only is the food wasted, butso are thefossil fuels and water that went into growing and transporting the food.

"Imagine all the energy, the water, electricity, petrol to transport the vegetables from the farm to the supermarket. But if you waste half of that, it's all this energy that has been useless," saidAnne Le Goff, a coordinator withAction RE-buts.

On Saturday, Action RE-Buts held a special cooking class at the Jean-Talon Marketso people could find out more about waste reduction.

Le Goff saysproduce often gets thrown into the garbage at supermarkets becausebruised and oddly-shaped veggies are deemed too unattractive to sell.

She says thespecial cooking class aimedtomake these rejectsdelicious.

"Wecanusethemliketheothers.Justremovethebadpartanditworksreally[well] inakitchen,saidBrigitte Laquerre, a chef at CentredesFemmesduHaut-Richelieu.

Encouraging businesses to pitch in

Laquerre says community pantries and soup kitchens will gladly accept ugly produce.

The city is encouraging grocery stores and hotels to donate excess food to local charities instead of throwing it out.

Local organizations, they help our citizens. They dont have enough. Many people in Montreal waste food and we have to stop that, saidRalMnard, the member of Montreal's executive committee responsible for the environment.

LeGoff says the waste continues when customers bring the food home, asCanadian households throw outas much as half the food in their refrigerators.

Workshops on cuttingwaste of all kinds will be held across the province all week.