Policy Question: What are some ways to reduce food scraps in landfills? Compost it!

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1 Jennifer Wuence ENSTU 300 Policy Analysis May 16, 2015 Policy Question: What are some ways to reduce food scraps in landfills? Introduction: Compost it! Landfills around the world are rapidly growing as waste becomes an issue. Population is increasing and waste is as well. There has been many methods to get rid of waste in the past few years. Burying trash, for example, was thought to be a great solution. At the time people seem to be okay with the saying, "out of sight, out of mind". However, as garbage continues to accumulate quickly, it becomes more difficult to hide it. Burning it was another option, if waste was burned then there will be more space. Unfortunately, burning wasn't an ethical solution in regards to contaminating the air. There were many other types of methods, such as, crushing it, chopping it to pieces, relocating, dumping it into the ocean, and even dumping it into space. Trash doesn't go away, people can't simply get rid of it, and as long as humans continue to survive on this planet, trash will continue to grow. Fortunately, there is a method that helps garbage to decrease rapidly. Children now learn it young as the three Rs: recycling, reusing, and reducing. But there is another effective method that people aren't aware about, and that's composting. Composting is organic substances decomposing, such as 1 food scraps, manure, plants, and paper like material to create nutrient rich soil. 1 CalRecycle. Compost What Is It? Accessed May 12, (

2 Background: The garbage crisis was first introduced as a global issue recently. Brief articles in the late 1980s and 1990s have been written to create awareness. However, environmental researchers have been trying to outreach the public about the amount of waste being put into landfills since the 1970s. Environmentalist knew the population was rapidly growing, the baby boom era had just occurred, and plastic had been adopted after WWII in the American lifestyle. Throughout the years in the U.S. the east coast was first to be affected with landfill waste, and they struggled to come up with solutions. Restrictions and policy were being formed, such as NIMBY (Not in my backyard), which is a belief that people shouldn't have to deal with garbage and landfills nearby, people 2 wanted garbage to relocate elsewhere. Then United States passes laws and regulations to reduce waste in the 1980s, and that it was mandatory for buildings to 3 have recycling bins, so people could start separating recyclables. Finally, on 1988 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had waste management as a main focus, reduction in landfill waste, regulations and laws for recycling, incineration and proper 4 land fill disposal. For example, incineration plants are considered a negative externalities, quicker way to get rid of waste when there is no space, lack of energy, or 2 Not In My Back Yard! Editorial Research Reports, June 9, 1989, pp Griffin, Rodman D. "Garbage Crisis." CQ Researcher 2, no. 11 (March 20, 1992): Griffin, R. D. (1992, March 20). Garbage crisis. CQ Researcher, 2, Retrieved from

3 no other option. What makes incineration so negative is that it is expensive, the pollutants being emitted into the air, and the possibility to have chemical leakage if not 5 properly inspected regularly. On the other hand, recycling still doesn't reduce the amount of waste we put into the landfills. People still are throwing away some items that we could reuse: food scraps. 5 Elbert Dijkgraaf, Herman R.J. Vollebergh, Burn or bury? A social cost comparison of final waste disposal methods, Ecological Economics, Volume 50, Issues 3 4, 1 October 2004, Pages , ISSN , (

4 Although landfills are facing the possibility of developing an over capacity for waste, there are options to help control the outbreak of the garbage crisis. One of them is composting, decomposed organic material recycled into rich nutrient dark soil. Food scraps are a major component to

5 composting and creating nutrients into the soil. Figure 1 shows that 30 40% of the 6 residential waste will be reduced. In other words, an average American throws out 77% of waste that can be recycled, and 44% of that is recyclable paper, glass, and metal. Which means 33% is organic waste that is decomposable. All across the nation more than half of the trash being thrown away into landfills are recyclables and when food gets compressed into such a tight space where there is a lack of oxygen and carbon dioxide it makes it impossible to decompose. That lettuce that was thrown out last week will never decompose into soil and just take up space for the non recyclable waste that is overflowing the land. In addition, Grocery stores may toss out 63 percent of food when a customer returns the product or the product doesn t sell, and that is 7 about 3,000 lbs. of food. Food businesses (like Costco, Panera, etc.) also produce services and create waste as well. For example, a study conducted in the University of Arizona claim that, estimated that the total food loss per day amounted to 49,296,540 8 lbs. in all full service restaurants and 85,063,390 lbs. in all fast food restaurants. This creates pressure on the environmentalist to implement more regulations on the type of process Waste Management s everywhere needs to practice, so it's safer for the environment. Fortunately, a new law has been recently passed on September 28, 2014: 6 Three Action Project. Eliminate Landfill Waste. Accessed May 12, ( Landfill Waste.php) 7 Marther, Tina. Investigations: How the Top 5 Supermarkets Waste Food. April 18, Accessed May 11 th, ( 8 Jones, M. Timothy. PHD. Using Contemporary Archaeology and Applied Anthropology to Understand Food Loss in the American Food System. Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology. University of Arizona. Accessed May 13, ( logyandappliedanthropologytounderstandfoodlossinamericanfoodsystem.pdf)

6 AB1826 (organic recycling waste). It requires all businesses and public places in a city or county that produces more than 8 cubic yards of organic waste to reduce to 4 cubic yards of organic waste by connecting with their local waste management facilities and to implement organic waste programs. By 2020 the goal is to reduce to 2 cubic yards of waste per facility. Businesses and institutions are not the only ones responsible to produce waste in landfills. Waste Management believes this will help and create a mandatory way for people to reduce waste. Stakeholders: first major stakeholder is Monterey Regional Waste Management District. Their values are reduction of waste, greener solutions, and innovations. Their mission is Turning Waste into Resources in the Most Cost Effective and Environmentally Sound Manner to 9 Benefit the Community. Which leads to their interests in reducing the amount of waste being produced and taken to the landfills, and they are coming up with solutions on ways to reduce the amount of waste. As mentioned previously, not all the solutions The 9 Monterey Regional Waste Management District. ABOUT. Accessed May 3 rd, (

7 have been practical and ethical for the environment. I spoke to Kimberle Herring, a Public Education Coordinator in Monterey Regional Waste Management District (MRWMD). Her job is to educate the public about sustainability and reducing landfill waste. Anyone can request a tour of the facility, and there one learns that MRWMD is one of the most sustainable landfills in the nation. They have a recycling area, a household and hazardous waste area, electronic drop off, remodeling/demolition of debris drop off, their famous Mercantile shop (where all the reusable items go up for sell again instead of being thrown out), and many more. MRWMD also uses the methane produced from their landfills to create energy for their whole facility. Finally, what has made MRWMD unique is that they collect food scraps from places like Costco, CSUMB, UCSC, and many more. According to Kimberle, "when the food scrap program initially began all food scraps received were composted with a similar process as the green waste in open windrows. Today all the food scraps are processed in the dry anaerobic 10 digestion system". In other words, they put all the food scraps into a chamber that functions similar to a cow's stomach that digests and produces fertilizer, and this system will break down and process food in 21 days instead of six months to completely break down like in the anaerobic digestion shown above in Figure 2. If companies like Costco, and schools like CSUMB are able to send their food scraps over to Monterey Regional Waste Management District, then other companies and local places should be able to do the same thing. A central empirical assumption that underlies the perspective of 10 Kimberle Herring, e mail message, March 11, 2015.

8 stakeholder one is implementing the law AB1826 for all businesses and jurisdictions to have a compost bin for MRWMD to pick up. The second stakeholder would be food businesses. Most food business values are creating a low cost supply with a high demand in their business. Often businesses have an interest of making a good profit without having to sacrifice more money, and meeting the demand without have a person (customer) dissatisfied or sacrificing their money. Food businesses (local or chain) help the economy greatly in the United States, because they help agriculture s economy. When a business needs dairy or eggs, they 11 will create a contract with a farm to produce their needs. Agriculture contributes almost 800 billion dollars to the United States economy. how much the food industry business and agriculture depend on In figure 3 it shows 11 GRACE Communication Foundation. Food Economics. Accessed May 9, ( economics).

9 one and another to keep the economy growing. The chart show which producer and agriculture is in high demand and the percentage of employers in the agriculture business. United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (USDA ERS) stated that over 1.5 million people are employed in the agricultural industries because of the food services. Figure 4 shows a chart of the employment percentage in food services based on the USDA ERS statistics. The food business is heavily depended on for the economy 12 and provide jobs for many people. A central empirical assumption for this stakeholder is that implementing AB1826 will not benefit a company to switch, because it may create tension between the people and the government. The stakeholders may not agree with the idea that taxes will be increased or a new tax will be included to provide 12 United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. Ag and Food Sectors and the Economy. Accessed May 11, ( products/ag and food statistics charting the essentials/a g and food sectors and the economy.aspx)

10 services for the compost regulation along with the fees that are charged with the current fees. According to the bill, [would] authorize a local governmental agency to charge and collect a fee from an organic waste generator to recover the local governmental 13 agency s costs incurred in complying with this act. In other words, their local waste management will be in charge of creating the fees. It then creates a pressure for the government to being implementing the laws because services in low income areas may not want to go forward with the new regulation. Kimberle stated, Economics always play a part. You have to have the money to build the system, operate it, as well as the 14 infrastructure/programs for the collection". So if there's no stable investment and the economy isn't well in certain areas, then it becomes difficult to develop this system. Policy Option Mandatory compost waste bins provided by local Waste Management for residents at home Implementing AB1826 for food businesses and jurisdictions (continuing) Environmental Sustainability Waste Management can do a large mass of composting and ( + ) Residents are more likely to implement the new law ( + ) Food will no longer be tossed in large mass (+) Economic Sustainability Composting will create more jobs for people Selling compost soil may increase economy. ( + ) Residence may be taxed for service fees. ( ) Businesses may lose profit with service fees ( ) Taxes may be implemented to local residents ( ) Social Equity Awareness will be impacted. ( + ) New laws, regulations, and tax fees may create a controversial opinion. ( ) WM will have to hire and train employees ( ) Awareness among the community will be less of an impact ( ) 13 Solid waste: organic waste. Assembly Bill No ( ). Accessed March 15, ( 14 Kimberle Herring, e mail message, March 11, 2015.

11 Business owners may not favor AB1826 ( ) Employees will be trained and an extra step of their job ( ) Evaluation of Policy Options: When Waste Management provides composting bins to local residents, then it will help reduce food waste into the landfill by over 30 percent into the landfill. MRWMD has the anaerobic digester that can quickly compost organic material brought in from the county to turn into soil. Kimberle mentioned that the soil gets sold and distributed to local farmers to use. According to the organization CalRecycle, vineyards have 15 benefitted a lot from using compost soil. Because the bins are mandatory just like the landfill bin and the recycle bin, then the regulation of composting at home will be implemented. This will created awareness within the community and residents will begin to learn more about the environment. This policy will also create more jobs for people in the community, because an extra truck may be needed to pick up the compost bin around neighborhoods. Also, professional will need to be hired that are experts in composting and working the anaerobic digestion in their local waste management. On the other hand, hiring more employees also means losing money within the facility, because they would also have to train these employees and taking time from actually 15 CalRecycle. Vineyards Benefit from Compost and Mulch. Revised April Accessed May 13, ( A&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.calrecycle.ca.gov%2FPublications%2FDocuments%2FOr ganics%255c doc&ei=hftxvycccoujyasi8ygaaw&usg=afqjcnhnapcmm D4ZeWXx768jKwhJQK7lLg&sig2=xnA4Dose8sFDZZe4ds_2Lw)

12 getting started. To provide bins for each resident and new trucks for pick ups are also going to cost the facility money. In other words, taxes may be applied to local residents for the services fees. This may create a controversy to the locals, because the working class does not favor being taxed from new laws and regulations, and this may create a setback. Implementing AB1826 for food businesses and jurisdictions to reduce food waste can also reduce the pounds of food being thrown out into landfills. The millions of pounds that get thrown out daily by food services will be greatly reduced when they are required to have a separate bin for food scraps for their local waste management to pick up. However, business may lose profit because the service provider will be in charge on fees and services to the businesses. In other words, businesses may have to pull from their profit to pay a bin and for pickups. If businesses decide to fight back and change the new law, then residents may also have to contribute to the new law by being taxed so the law can still continue without having to revoke it or businesses will also be forced to increase sale prices to cancel out the loss of profit. If AB1826 becomes effective, it then creates unawareness within the community, because only businesses and jurisdictions are being affected and not the residents. Finally, employees will have to be trained and become aware of the new regulation. This creates a loss in profit and time for business because they must take away valuable work time to each employee or pay them overtime to train them on their new procedure. Employees may find this difficult and a hassle to add an extra procedure to their daily task in a quick pace environment.

13 Recommendation: My recommendation is to implement the regulations requiring every resident to have a compost bin provided by their local Waste Management. However, there is a limitation to this policy analysis. How the food will be processed in a convenient manner using compost bins, because places like Costco has a small foldable bin with biodegradable bag. I am unable to identify the exact process on how the bins will be created, because there isn't a residential area to my knowledge that I was able to communicate figuring out how it was done in an efficient manner without having food and decomposable things rot into the bin before the trucks pick it up. The most important concession to mandatory compost bin for residents is to consider that having people have the ability to choose whether or not to compost on their own allows them to freely feel independent with their choices and beliefs. This allows the local government have less pressure on advising locals the new regulations and tax fees being implemented. On the other hand, having Monterey Regional Waste Management provide compost bins for local creates awareness for people as to why food scraps need a separate bin, how much food are we wasting and buying. This may even help AB1826 become favorable to the community so everyone becomes involved and responsible for their environment. Although people will be taxed, it also creates new jobs and opportunities for the community, and Environmentalist can work with Waste Management to create a sustainable community. The empirical claim I believe that supports the policy option is when the organization CalRecycle writes articles on how

14 composting has benefited agriculture like the vineyards. The central empirical claim on AB1812 for Businesses is that they will reduce their food waste into the landfill by 60 percent. However, everything in a composting bit has to be organic material, and no chemicals can be used or meats and dairies. This will limit the amount of waste businesses can put into their bins. The empirical assumption I find questionable is when businesses claim that they will lose profit, however, food corporations will find a way to work their way around the regulations. Consequences and Implications: A potential unintended consequence of the policy option could be the carelessness or the process of remembering to throw the food scraps in the right area. People may still toss them into the same landfill bin a couple of time unintentionally. Another problem is the lack of knowledge a person might have on what to put inside a compost bin. For instance, a person may think its ok to put inorganic substances like fast food products, some types of meat and dairy may not be allowed to toss into the bin. Finally, if a resident wants to have a food scrap bin inside their home just like a home garbage bin, then they may use regular plastic bags and toss them out with the compost bin. Plastic is not biodegradable and releases toxins, so a person will need to buy biodegradable bags. The implications to the bags is having to hire new employees for Waste Management to sort out the food scraps to be sure that all the correct food scraps is being tossed out, and that the bags are biodegradable.

15 Accountability: Although this policy option may cause residents may be taxed and Monterey Regional Waste Management will have to train new employees, and that AB1826 would work in their favor. For this reason, I believe community outreach in educating the public about food waste can benefit both stakeholders by creating a borderline between the two within the residents, MRWMD, and food businesses. Conclusion: Having MRWMD and other WMs to implement mandatory compost bin to residents will help lower the amount of food scraps that go into the landfills and will no longer impact the amount of space that waste takes up. With recycling and composting, landfills will be reducing their loads over 70 percent. Also, it s a more practical and ethical way to reuse the resources that are available. Finally, creating awareness to the community is what helps the environment and people become more involved.