Massachusetts is one of only six states — five of them clustered in the Northeast, the other being California — and seven metro areas that have implemented organic waste bans on some level. And CET has helped area businesses develop strategies to reduce food waste, so a recent partnership with the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) — specifically, a ‘toolkit’ on organic waste bans and their potential to reduce food waste and strengthen local economies — made sense.
“Massachusetts in general has been a national leader on addressing this issue head-on, through a number of strategies to help keep food from the trash,” Macaluso told BusinessWest. “We’re focused on helping businesses implement those strategies because we have a long, rich history of doing that work. Harvard Law is great at analyzing policies with a legal lens, and we have the practical side, how those policies are actually playing out in real life.”
Food waste in the U.S. amounts to some $218 billion each year spent on food that is never eaten, according to the toolkit, which is basically a lengthy report (titled “Bans and Beyond”) that examines the issue, what those six states and seven cities have implemented, the challenges they’ve faced, and the economic impact of those policies.
As for the core issue, most wasted food ends up in landfills, where it produces greenhouse gases and contributes to states and localities running out of landfill capacity. State and local bans limit the amount of organic waste, including food waste, that businesses and individuals can dispose of in landfills — thus driving more sustainable practices, such as food-waste prevention, food donation, and sending food scraps to animal-feed operations or composting or anaerobic-digestion (AD) facilities.
“Food waste takes up space in landfills, contributes to climate change, and is a drain on the economy,” said Emily Broad Leib, director of FLPC. “Organic waste bans are one of the best tools we have seen that states and localities can use to transform business practices and drive the development of food-waste recycling infrastructure.”
The toolkit walks readers through factors to consider in pursuing similar policies in their own state or locality. It also explores nine other categories of policies and programs — such as permitting and zoning regulations for organics-recycling facilities, grants to support food-waste reduction projects, and policies to create markets for biogas and compost — that can enhance the impact of an organic waste ban or advance food waste reduction and diversion independently.
“Over the years, we’ve seen firsthand how waste bans and the other policies and programs discussed in the toolkit can drive innovation and significantly reduce wasted food,” said John Majercak, president of CET. “The resulting impact is a big win for communities, regional economies, and the environment.”