City study of food scraps called waste of money

For one week, three times a day, Blane Charles placed his eggshells, fruit peels and other food waste in a stainless steel bowl sent to him by a market research group hired by the City of Calgary.

Charles weighed his kitchen scraps on an electronic scale, also sent to him by the firm, and recorded the weight and types of food in a diary, also courtesy of the group.

By the end of the week, he had 1.5 kilograms of food waste, a free bowl and scale, and the promise of a $100 Visa credit card once his kitchen diary was mailed back to the research firm.

Charles was participating in the city’s $90,000 research study that examined the habits of 450 households in an effort to learn more about preventable food waste.

“It’s just such a waste of taxpayers’ money, especially in this day in age,” he said.

“Our economy is not in a good shape.”

Charles signed up to participate in the study after receiving an email.

He said the $100 he earned could go toward paying the $6.50-amonth fee he’ll be stuck with next year when the city rolls out its residential compost program.

He deemed the research study an effort to gather data before the already approved green bin compost program is unveiled. “It’s silly,” Charles said. “It appears to me they were trying to produce data to support the decision.”

But the city said the timing is purely a coincidence and the kitchen diaries research is an example of just one study of focus groups done by the city for research.

“The timing, it just happened to be that green carts are rolling out next year,” said Lindsay Seidel-Wassenaar, a leader of strategic planning and policy with the city’s waste and recycling services.

“We do waste composition studies all the time. This is almost a form of a waste composition study.”

Seidel-Wassenaar said the research into what leftovers and food scraps people are tossing is costing the city approximately $90,000, which includes the $100 being mailed to participants who complete their food diaries.

“The research diaries will help the City of Calgary determine how big of an issue preventable food waste is in Calgary households," she said. “We know that more than half of the residential garbage is food and yard waste. It’s about determining how much of that is preventable."

Seidel-Wassenaar said throwing out food costs consumers money and the research Charles participated in will help the city determine how best to approach the issue, educate citizens and ultimately save people money at the end of the day.

“The research that we’re doing is going to be beneficial for the entire city,” she said.

We know that more than half ... is food and yard waste. It’s about determining how much of that is preventable.