Mass. To Make Big Food Wasters Lose The Landfill

[Sherman A1]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/08/06/338317224/mass-to-make-big-food-wasters-lose-the-landfill

Sure, there's plenty you can do with leftovers: foist them on your office mates or turn them into casserole.

But if you're a big food waste generator like a hospital or a supermarket, your scraps usually go to the landfill to rot.

In Massachusetts, that's about to change, as the state prepares to implement the most ambitious commercial food waste ban in the U.S.

The ban, which will commence Oct. 1, applies to institutions that produce more than a ton of food waste a week. Those 1,700 some-odd supermarkets, schools, hospitals and food producers will no longer be able to send their discarded food to the landfill. Instead, they they'll have to donate the useable food and ship the rest to a composting facility, a plant that turns the scraps into energy or a farm that can use it as animal food.

[Blue_Adept]

1. Sounds good to me.

Waste not want not.

[handmade34]

2. ...

[Half-Century Man]

3. All organic waste should be composted.

And used to invigorate farmland instead of chemical fertilizers. We should have been doing this for the last 90+ years (since the conversion of military chemical plants to agricultural chemical plants at the end of WWI).

[littlemissmartypants]

5. Agreed. nt

[tosh]

8. YES...

and did you know that there is a widespread policy of grocery stores NOT donating... and... NOT allowing gardeners to collect produce waste?? I have never understood that. It should be mandated.

[Zorra]

12. +1

[littlemissmartypants]

4. This is fantastic.

Food waste is one of my pet peeves. I think we should also glean much, much more than what we do. Peanuts are my favorite thing to glean. I love the smell of the earth where they are grown and the harvesters are terribly inefficient.

Thanks for your post, Sherman A1!

[Sherman A1]

13. I agree with your viewpoint on food waste

but, really anything wasted is just so many lost opportunities and silly. I have to disagree with you on the peanut thing (allergy and all) but, I get your point.

Happy you found the post informative.

[AngryAmish]

6. So everyone has to clean their plates?

Like Alcatraz?

[FSogol]

7. Compost collection is the next big thing. Several towns/cities and launching

weekly compost pick ups like they do for recyclables.

[jwirr]

9. Our local grocery store used to set out their produce waste for my dad to pick up for the geese,

ducks and chickens. There was sometimes good stuff in the box. They set out back on Saturday evenings. The school donated the excess food to poor families.

[logosoco]

10. It may not make a big impact,

but I started composting about three years ago (made a compost bin out of old wood shutters my daughter was replacing). Great soil for the garden. We have very clay soil, and with this I don't have to buy stuff to make it better. Plus I have noticed a big difference in our trash volume (and we are not big food wasters, I can eat on left overs for days!).
It would be great to see cities and large businesses make this a priority.

[NM_Birder]

11. The casino food scraps in Vegas are fed to pigs

and the pigs fed back to the visitors. it was one of the best "Dirty Jobs".