As the holidays approach, many residents will celebrate with friends, family and food! The average Canadian household throws away up to $1500 worth of food per year. Most of this food waste consists of healthy fruits and vegetables. As you plan for your holiday feasts, remember to waste less food, save more money and eat healthier in the process!

Follow these holiday food waste tips from Dufferin County to help you buy only what you need, preserve what you buy and love your leftovers.

Start by creating a holiday meal plan and shopping list. Before shopping, check your fridge and pantry for ingredients on your list. Not sure if they are fresh enough to use? Download the Best Before vs Expiry Dates infographic to help you understand the difference between the two!

When you go shopping, stick to your shopping list at the grocery store. If possible, make shorter and more frequent trips to grocery stores instead of buying everything at once.

Once you have your groceries, make them last longer by preserving what you buy! Start by properly storing them in your fridge:

• Bottom shelf – best for raw meats such as chicken, ham and turkey
• Middle shelf – best for dairy and egg products, such as cheese, milk and eggnog
• Top shelf – leftovers, and other prepared foods, such as cooked meat, cranberry sauce and yogurt
• Crisper drawer (high humidity) – best for vegetables such as green beans and carrots
• Crisper drawer (low humidity) – best for fruits such as apples, pears and cherries
• Download the Refrigerator Infographic to learn more
• Download the Produce Storage Guide for more storage guidelines

Get creative and love your holiday leftovers by turning them into a new meal! You can make sandwiches from leftover ham roast, a shepherd’s pie with leftover mashed potatoes and make a soup with leftover vegetables. Need inspiration? Find a leftover recipe from the Love Food Hate Waste website!

Items placed in the Green Bin help keep food waste and soiled paper products out of the landfill. Green Bin materials are taken to an organics processing facility and turned into a soil amendment called compost, which helps nourish plants and vegetables in your garden.

Place these common holidays items in the Green Bin:

All food waste and soiled paper products, including:

• Leftovers
• Bones
• Eggshells
• Fruit and vegetable peels
• Fruit cores, pits and stems
• Coffee grounds and tea bags
• Napkins
• Paper towel
• Tissues
• Paper plates
• Paper cups
• Paper straws
• Parchment paper
• Wooden cutlery

Soiled paper products such as paper towel, napkins and tissues break down easily when wet and they are made of a grade of paper that is meant to be single-use and cannot be recycled into new paper products. Items, such as paper plates and cups that have a wax-coating are not accepted in the Green Bin, including wax paper. These items have a plastic lining that cannot be recycled or composted. These items belong in the garbage.

Getting food from farm to table and then disposing of it as waste uses up a lot of resources and creates a significant carbon footprint. Turning food waste into compost is a great way to divert it from the landfill, which reduces toxins in the environment, such as methane gas. However, preventing food waste in the first place is even better.

Every tonne of household food waste avoided is equivalent to taking one car off the road. Plus, it saves families a lot of money in the long run. However, some food waste is unavoidable. As a guide, think of food waste in two categories: edible and inedible food waste.

Edible food waste includes any foods that could have been eaten but are thrown out instead. This includes fruits and vegetables that go bad in the fridge and discarded leftovers. Inedible food waste includes any food scraps that aren’t usually eaten, such as peels, eggshells, apple cores, bones and coffee grounds. Ideally, you will have more inedible food waste in your green bin than edible food waste.

Visit https://www.dufferincounty.ca/waste to learn more about the Plan to Save, Reduce Food Waste campaign! Follow Dufferin Waste on Facebook and X and download the free Dufferin Waste App for more.