Christmas is a time of plenty, but it’s also a time of plenty of waste.

Every holiday season we budget for many things, from gifts to food to décor. If we also accounted for what we throw in the garbage, we’d blow that budget.

"It is estimated that the amount of food waste increases by about 25% during the holiday season," says environmental consultant Paul van der Werf.

According to the George Morris Centre, an agri-food think tank, 40% of Canadian food is tossed yearly, equating to roughly $27 billion. And that’s not chicken feed; that’s feed for the world’s poorest.

“Wastage costs everybody in one form or another,” say Martin Gooch, director of the Value Chain Management Centre.

“Food waste creates methane - one of the most harmful greenhouse gases. It’s 25 times more harmful than carbon; yet, we hear so much about carbon reduction, and so little of methane.”

So just because you compost something, it doesn’t mean you’re not wasting it. The little green bin does not absolve you of your sins.

During the holidays, we toss out the extra fare we hoarded in fear of stores being closed for – gasp – 24 hours.

“We tend to buy large quantities of food at one time, which if not used in a timely manner, goes bad. In developing countries, people go to market each day and only buy what they will consume for that day, so there is little waste,” says Jane Bargout, a spokesman for World Vision Canada.

Tristram Stuart, an environmental campaigner and author of Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal, says with a globalized food market, waste contributes to rising prices and hunger. “When western countries buy food like rice and grains in the global market only to then throw it away, we are literally taking food away from the mouths of the hungry.”

It’s not just consumers at fault. Stuart notes enormous amounts of good food are wasted at every stage of the supply chain – farms, factories and grocery stores – and it often goes unnoticed.

Beyond methane’s dangerous effects, there’s the environmental impact from all the resources that went into producing this food – water, land, fertilizer, and transport fuel.

With all the talk toward reduce, reuse, recycle, Gooch finds much of it is just regurgitated. “How many times do you see articles about buying local? Talk is cheap. Change in behaviour is hard.”

Simple reductions by one family can make a huge difference when multiplied by millions of families.

Most waste happens incrementally so it’s hard to recognize the size of the problem. You rarely throw out an entire bag of potatoes, but you’ll toss a few here or there.

Produce is the most perishable and most squandered. Remember, by the time it’s purchased, especially in winter, produce has sat awhile and travelled long distances. “Plan how to buy. Plan how to store. Plan preparation,” says Gooch.

And a best-before date is not a fling-in-the-bin date. “Food on or after its best-before or sell-by date is not necessarily unsafe to eat,” says Stuart. (Check out stilltasty.com for best-until dates.)

It’s not too late to celebrate a happy green year.

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

Don’t squander Yuletide food; ponder new ways to use it.

Leftovers: Make Christmas Shepherd’s pie. Add extra rice to hot cereal. Toss cukes into leftover pickle juice for homemade pickles.

Freeze: Bread, veggies, fruit, cheese and more will last longer.

Compost can wait: Make moist, healthy cakes. Yams, carrots, spinach, zucchinis, bananas, yogurt, sour cream …

Donate: Call Second Harvest or a food bank near you.

Get crafty with those Christmas decorations.

Treecycling: Recycling trees into mulch is much better than disposing in landfills.

Potpourri: Mix pine needles, cinnamon sticks, dried flowers and sniff.

Use a saw: Make Kitty a scratching post, cut garden logs, create coasters with sandpaper and varnish …

Clean: Wrapping paper can be used to clean windows – without streaks!