Today (October 16) is the first day of national Waste Reduction Week, and the City of Airdrie is trying to raise awareness on how you can reduce waste while buying groceries.

Leanne Moreira, Education Coordinator with Waste and Recycling at the City of Airdrie, explained the importance of educating residents on how waste reduction starts at the store.

"It's important to build awareness around issues of sustainability and responsible consumption, just so that we can start reducing waste. We have excellent recycling programs already in place, but we'd like to take a step back and have people think about what they're actually consuming and how they can reduce before they even need to recycle."

Moreira explained one of the main ways to reduce waste while shopping is by using reusable shopping bags, cutting down on the number of plastic bags used. There are other things you can do as well.

"Then it's looking at what you're purchasing. You'll often see, perhaps a styrofoam egg container compared to a cardboard carton egg container. A styrofoam container cannot be recycled whereas the cardboard container can be, so that's just one way where we can cut down waste."

Moreira also recommended buying in bulk, not bagging produce like bananas that don't need to be bagged, and avoiding items that contain a lot of packaging. This week is a great time to start implementing habits that will last for the rest of the year and help reduce the amount of waste Airdrie sends to the landfill.

"This is a great week where we can highlight how we can reduce waste, but it doesn't have to be contained to one week. We can continue these practices throughout the year. This is just a great opportunity for us to focus on shopping at the store and how we can continue those practices everyday."

National Waste Reduction Week runs until Sunday (October 22).

 

Questions, comments or story ideas? Email us at news@discoverairdrie.com