Food & Climate
Annual food waste in American Maine emits as much greenhouse gas as nearly 400,000 cars driven for one year, so, it needs legal ban
Now, as Maine updates its comprehensive plan for addressing climate change, state leaders are still calling for a new approach, according a report seen by “Food & Climate‘ platform.
Thanks to a first-of-its-kind study completed earlier this year, there is concrete data showing that more than 360,000 tons of food is wasted or lost in Maine annually. While much of that could be recovered to feed the one in eight Mainers who face hunger, it instead rots in landfills creating methane, a harmful greenhouse gas.
Food waste in Maine
Maine has ambitions to cut food waste in half by 2030, but absent a food waste ban, Nora Bosworth, a staff attorney for Conservation Law Foundation, said it isn’t clear how the state plans to achieve that goal.
“How we can get there is through a food waste ban,” Bosworth said.
Food waste bans prioritize the donation or recycling of organic material, rather than sending it to landfills or incinerators.
Diverting food waste from landfills has multiple benefits, Bosworth explained, including preventing those foods from creating methane gas and conserving space in landfills, which has been an issue in Maine.
“If we want to lower greenhouse gas emissions, then stopping food from rotting in our landfills is one of the smartest, no-brainer ways to do that,” Bosworth said.
But the laws also have a humanitarian benefit, and a lot of food that gets thrown away is still edible, Bosworth said, according to “Maine morning star“.
The first law was in 2011
Connecticut was the first New England state to pass a food waste law back in 2011. Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island followed suit in the years after, and New Hampshire joined them just last year.
Maine tried to catch up with its regional peers when state Rep. Stanley Zeigler (D-Montville) introduced LD 1009 in March 2023.
The proposal would have banned large food waste generators such as schools, hospitals, food producers and others from disposing of food waste if they were close to a facility that could compost or otherwise dispose of the waste. The bill outlined a phased approach that gradually expanded the requirement based on location and the amount of waste generated.
During the public hearing for that bill, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection testified in opposition, saying that it would require additional staff to help people understand if they are subject to the ban and how to comply. Additionally, the department argued that the state lacks the infrastructure for food waste collection, processing and composting for the ban to be effective.
An amended version of it passed the Maine House of Representatives and Senate, but died due to a lack of funding. The bill had a fiscal note north of $550,000 for five staff positions and other associated costs for the department.
Blair said the fiscal note was “ridiculous” and much higher than his organization has seen in other states that have passed similar laws.
And while he is sympathetic to Maine being a rural state and acknowledged that driving long distances to a recycling facility could negate the environmental benefits, Blair said the geographic limitations in the bill were meant to address those concerns.
As for infrastructure, Bosworth said other New England states saw new hauling services and composting facilities pop up as a result of the new laws. Even if Maine doesn’t have all of those pieces in place now, she argued that is the “beautiful part of legislation like this.”
“If you build it, they will come,” Bosworth said.
Massachusetts, for example, saw the number of businesses with food waste collection programs more than double in the five years after it implemented a 1-ton per week limit on food waste landfilling in 2014. It also saw annual food waste decrease by 210,000 tons, according to a state report.
A report released in early January found that the total waste put in landfills increased 34% since 2018. Waste generation continues to increase at approximately 5% per year.
Just over half of Maine’s landfill waste ends up in the Juniper Ridge landfill located in Old Town and Alton. The facility is owned by the state but managed by the Bureau of General Services, which contracts with NEWSME Landfill Operations, a subsidiary of the waste management company Casella.
A draft of the state’s updated climate action plan sets a target of cutting food waste in half by 2030. To do so, it suggests implementing reporting requirements for large producers of food waste and maximizing the recovery of food through tax credits and supporting food donation infrastructure.
The Maine Climate Council has until December 1 to update the four-year plan that outlines strategies for reducing carbon emissions and introducing cleaner energy sources in the state.