Take-out has become a normal, and for some everyday, thing we do. Our lives have become so busy we are spending less time in the kitchen and more time going through drive-thru. It is haunting to see how much garbage amounts from take-out containers and wrappers. During the recent pandemic it seems more people are opting for take-out creating more waste. It was also recommended to go back to single use plastics and cups which has created a step back for the environment. In Canada only 10% of plastics are actually recycled which is contributing to our landfills being overfilled with plastic (IISD, 2021, para. 3). Stepping away from single use plastics will drastically help this horrible consequence of our future trash problem. As the country makes its way back to normalcy there needs to be awareness of the future consequences of this plastic pollution (Shams et al., 2021, p.8). The result, as Beattie (2021) tells what the environmentalists are saying, “generating a huge amount of unnecessary waste (para.1). Just walking around the neighbourhood, the amount of garbage from take-out containers and coffee cups is scary. We now live in a world where we want everything fast and food preparation is no exception. The busy schedules of people are creating less time spent in the kitchen and more time buying easy to prepare meals. Not only are these meals easy to make, but they are also creating more waste with all the unnecessary packaging. Most whole foods will have little to no waste but who has time to cook anymore? Even myself I have found its sometimes just easier to buy that packaged meal then to spend hours in the kitchen cooking from scratch.
Image taken by Nicole Larocque, 2021
The image taken portrays just one meal for a family of four and the waste that it produced. This particular garbage is usually tossed away quicker than anyone can realize the impact it will have in our landfills. Leaving the garbage out for a while for everyone to see after they ate created a haunting view of just how much trash one take-out meal can make.