California’s organic-waste law set a high bar, but most cities struggle to reach it
In 2016, California passed the nation’s most ambitious restrictions on landfilling food and yard waste, with the aim of slashing the greenhouse gases these organic materials generate when buried. The law mandated turning the waste into compost or biogas, with a goal of cutting landfill disposal by 50 percent, from 2014 levels, by the end of 2020 and 75 percent by 2025. But already, cities have fallen behind on setting up the costly systems for collecting and processing this waste. Starting Jan. 1, 2022, lagging communities could be fined up to $10,000 a day.(No paywall)
Food-waste bill would tackle problem nationwide
A new bill introduced by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, and Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat, aims to lower food waste nationally by targeting schools and federal food vendors.
Study casts doubt on food waste ‘facts’
Nearly every article on food waste includes these stats: 40 percent of food in this country, worth $165 billion, is wasted each year. But a study from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Applied Economics says that those numbers are only estimates and may actually be inaccurate.
Few options for urban juice shops to reduce waste
It’s no secret that good compost improves soil, but many urban juice joints don’t bother getting licenses to cart their leftover peels and pulp to local composters, either because it’s too expensive or because the scraps are too “wet and heavy” to be useful, says FERN contributing editor Elizabeth Royte in Modern Farmer.
New report offers plan to cut U.S. food waste by 20 percent
By investing $18 billion, America could decrease food waste by 20 percent and spur $100 billion in “societal economic value,” says a new report out by Rethink Food Waste Through Economics and Data.
Coming soon? Windrows of dead, composting poultry
State and federal officials said they are looking for better ways to kill poultry flocks rapidly if bird flu hits the United States again, and that millions of fowl could be turned into compost or buried on the farms where they die.