Contributor to Canadian household food waste

Numerous studies have shown that Canada is one of the countries with the most severe food waste worldwide. According to Cousins, in Canada, approximately 2.94 million metric tons of food is wasted at the family level annually, with about 79 kilograms of waste per person. Up to 50% of annual waste occurs at the household level in Canada. The reason we care about this topic is that household food waste is a direct result of serious environmental problems. Things like water scarcity, loss of biodiversity, and the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere during the decomposition of food contribute to global warming.

Research question

How is household food waste produced through family-level overconsumption in Canada?

Student researcher names

This study will be conducted by Andrea Chen, Aria Chen and Ran Yue.

Project proposal summary

Our project focuses on food waste at the household level in Canada. In particular, we try to identify the contributing factors of food waste in Canadian society by studying the waste related to overconsumption. Although a large number of previous studies have explored many known causes of household food waste in different countries/regions, our study will use the form of interviews with random samples from different regions of Canada to understand the personal experiences of consumers. Specifically, we will ask participants about their shopping habits and personal eating/cooking habits and encode the key information they provide in the hope that by doing so we can gain a deeper understanding of specific Canadian consumers' experiences with household food waste. Canada is one of the countries with the most serious food waste in the world. Our study can find out and summarize some factors of waste at the individual level, which may provide a reference for future research.