In an effort to manage municipal solid wastes and curb landfill emissions, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality will offer for the first time funding for food waste management projects. Funding will be available to public school districts and universities, municipalities and counties, and tribes for the development of projects in fiscal year 2022.
Patrick Riley, manager of ODEQ’s Solid Waste and Sustainability Division, said the agency is looking for projects that would divert food waste from landfills toward re-use or a higher use. Some examples included community food recovery programs and university research projects. “Wasted food has an environmental impact — the production of food never consumed uses a lot of resources, and if you waste the food, you waste the resources,” Riley said. “So one of the things we are trying this year is to manage that waste.”
Riley said food waste prevention programs at schools could help reduce the number of food insecure households. Food waste also has been diverted from landfills to livestock operations and other agricultural purposes. “There is some recovery going on right now,” Riley said. “But I am not sure we understand all of the obstacles that keep us from recycling or re-using” food that now goes to landfills and eventually into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases.
Pete Schultz, senior district manager for Waste Management, said any program that would reduce the amount waste that arrives at landfills like the one he manages on the outskirts of Muskogee are “a great thing.” “A landfill permit is like a box: When it fills up there is no more space,” Schultz said. “Things you can recycle and reuse will extend the life of a landfill …, so anytime we can implement programs like this, it’s a great thing.”