Last semester I worked with the same group and we did our presentation on Food Waste from Seed to Plate, looking at all aspects of food waste.

This semester however, we decided to narrow our focus solely on the legislation and law aspect of food waste.

At first we were looking into Criminalizing food waste federally, and attempting a national law on food waste as seen in France. Of course we would love for this to happen, but we thought our efforts would be better spent municipally, rather than federally because it was more within our scope. So, we then focused our idea locally, for here in Calgary. And as the discussion went on, we decided that we would criminalize food waste from grocery stores in Calgary. We decided we would make a mini documentary as well as a bylaw draft proposal to share with municipal council.

As the semester went on we were faced with a debate on whether to focus the bylaw on a penalty or a rewards system. And after a lot of discussion and expert opinions, we decided to mainly use a penalty system. 

And after the dinner, we had some really great suggestions to update our bylaw ideas with a transitional period,  as well as looking more into how to maintain accountability for grocery stores.

With our original plan, we were going to meet with council, however due to our conflicting schedules we weren’t able to meet with them.

We have given them the bylaw draft and documentary, and although we didn’t follow through with the original plan we still have started the conversation and adapted to the changes thrown our way.