Quadra Island, an island off the west coast of Canada, has found that problems like food waste, which might be easily dealt with in more populous and better served locations, are actually more difficult to manage. For example, prior to a newly established food rescue initiative, island grocery stores would incur the cost of sending unsellable food to far away landfills. And far away is the operative word here - the nearest landfill is full so food waste has to be transported some 80 km (~48 miles) away.
The program has seen members of the Quadra Island Climate Action Team work with the island's food stores to launch a food recovery program to keep edible food from ending up in landfills. Not only does this cut down on food waste - a significant source of methane when it decays in landfills - but it helps improve food security, already a concern in this community at the end of the supply chain prior to COVID but now even heightened in the face of inflation and other economic pressures.
Volunteers from the Climate Action Team currently receive food from the food retailers and there is the hope that the initiative can expand to include restaurants. Anyone and everyone can get what they need, regardless of their financial situation.
Anything not fit for human consumption will be passed to local farmers for feeding their livestock and any remaining food will be composted.
In a small community many hands are pitching in to help neighbours eat better, no matter their circumstances, at the same time as greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. Could you take a page from the book of the Quadra Islanders?