Cutting food waste would lower emissions, but so far only one state has done it
Kay Masterson has always wanted to make her Boston-area restaurant more sustainable, partnering with an organic farm to get some vegetables close by and offering reusable containers for customers’ takeout. When Massachusetts was weighing whether to block restaurants from dumping food waste into landfills, her restaurant started composting without waiting on a law.
Right away, there were challenges: $3,000 a year for bins and pickup. Busy dishwashers could contaminate an entire bag of compostable materials by missing a single butter packet. And customers in the habit of just chucking their leftovers needed signage to get uneaten food into the right place.
Masterson’s operation figured out those problems, but she knows not everyone will.
“What’s hard is knowing that the restaurant industry is such a difficult industry, it’s been such a challenging few years. Our costs are constantly going up,” Masterson said. “People give up.”
The difficulty of cutting food waste has spoiled several states’ attempts to ban it, and only one — Massachusetts — has actually succeeded, according to a study this month in the journal Science. Massachusetts did it by building one of the most extensive composting networks in the country, inspecting more often, keeping the rules simple and levying heavy fines on businesses that don’t comply, the study found.
That matters because food waste contributes over half the planet-warming methane emissions that come from landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Ioannis Stamatopoulos, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the study’s authors, said organic waste laws in the other key states examined — California, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont — appeared to have little effect.
“I was surprised by how extreme the results were,” Stamatopoulos said.
To get a picture of how a state’s waste ban was working, the researchers corresponded with state agencies and filed public record requests to gather information about what was sent to a landfill or burned in the years before and after legislation was phased in. Then they used statistics to predict the amount of waste that should have been generated, and compared that to reality.
Ning Ai, an associate professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois Chicago who wasn’t involved in the study, had reservations about making too much of its findings due to the imperfect data. She said she thinks food waste bans can be effective, but said they shouldn’t be the only way states try to cut back on waste. States can redistribute food that may be past its expiration date but is still OK to eat, or divert food headed to landfills to animals instead, for example.
Weslynne Ashton, a professor of environmental management and sustainability at the Illinois Institute of Technology who also wasn’t involved in the study, was more impressed, calling it “a very comprehensive analysis on a very complex problem.”
“I think what they demonstrate is that having a policy is fine, but unless you have the infrastructure and the incentive and a way to enforce compliance, then you’re not really doing anything,” Ashton said.
That’s something state waste management officials know firsthand. Rhode Island, for instance, first instituted its commercial waste ban in 2016. Private interests subsequently invested significantly in an anaerobic digester, a facility used to convert food waste into biofuels, that could take in food diverted from landfills. But they had a harder time converting people’s behavior. Rhode Island is now working on an updated solid waste management plan slated for completion by 2026.
“I think without investment in education and enforcement, you will get so far,” said David McLaughlin, who works on sustainability initiatives including organics diversion at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. “I think that needs to be a part of it. And thus far it hasn’t been.”
The researchers also found California to be one of the states whose effort to cut food waste failed. California depends on local governments to meet food waste diversion goals. About two years ago — after the time period the study evaluated — the state started evaluating jurisdictions. If they aren’t complying, the state makes a plan to make them do so. But penalties on businesses themselves are up to the discretion of the local government, and fines for businesses that aren’t complying could only take effect starting this past January.
California is also one of the only states to have passed legislation targeted at food waste from individuals as well as commercial sources. About 60% of food waste in landfills comes from commercial sources, but the other 40% comes from households, the researchers said.
Ashton, the IIT environmental management professor, thinks cracking down on businesses who refuse to change their behavior could be more important than enticing change by providing outreach, resources and education about reducing food waste.
“Unfortunately, I think the threat of enforcement and fines — it is very effective,” she said.
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This story has been corrected to show that investment in the Rhode Island anaerobic digester came from private interests, not the state.
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Follow Melina Walling on X, formerly known as Twitter, @MelinaWalling.
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