June 13, 2024

"For more than 20 years, South Korea has prohibited food or food scraps from going into trash bins."

"Instead, food waste is used to create compost, animal feed or biogas. France has a mandatory composting law, which means municipalities must provide residents ways to divert organic waste from landfills. In 2016, France became the first country to require supermarkets to donate still-safe food. California is furthest along. Since 2022, the state has required grocery stores to donate, not throw away, 'the maximum amount of edible food that would otherwise be disposed,' or face fines. This year large restaurants, hotels and hospital cafeterias also came under the law. The legislation also requires every city and county to reduce the volume of organic waste that goes into landfills by 75 percent by 2025, compared with 2014 levels. That means building more composting facilities or putting in machines that create biogas from organic waste...."

From "White House Announces Strategy to Keep Edible Food Out of Landfills/The government will look at ways to extend the shelf life of foods and to create more composting and other facilities, as well as urge companies to donate more food" (NYT).

65 comments:

Money Manger said...

By adding additional costs to the food supply chain, this will push up supermarket prices and further hurt low income people. The private sector is trying to address this issue with market-driven solutions, like the app TooGoodToGo. That is, when food gets aged, but is still good, mark it down and move it out.

Truthavenger said...

You eat ze garbage, and you will like it.

Marcus Bressler said...

Nothing more than government overreach; unconstitutional on its face. The poor (not $ poor) people who might eat this could be spending quite a bit of their time on the toilet with a vomit bucket nearby. Hello, salmonella, listeria, e coli, and parasites (you know, those WORMS that live inside your body after you consume certain undercooked foods). If Cali is the leader in the US, you can be certain it is a bad idea.

Wilbur said...

We put every leftover ort of food into a bucket in our kitchen; Mrs. Wilbur mulches it with lawn cuttings and puts it on our plants year round in Hollywood, FL.

But I don't like being ordered to, nor anyone else being ordered to, by Big Mommy gubmit.

Tina Trent said...

Also in South Korea, if someone is caught shoplifting, there are serious consequences.

Meanwhile, in America, hard-working, poorly paid grocery workers are not allowed to stop shoplifters or even tell them to stop stealing. The courts won't convict shoplifters, so these people have no fear of asserting violence. Local law enforcement's hands are tied because liberals have decriminalized retail theft.

Our large grocery chains have extremely small profit margins already due to vast criminal "product shrinkage." Now we are asking them to assume another financial burden. Too bad nobody in Washington or the states is willing to re-criminalize retail theft as a prerequisite to forcing these businesses to engage in another virtue-signaling recycling activity.

The price of this entire shitshow rolls onto the consumer, of course. We're not South Korea.

FleetUSA said...

Food banks and soup kitchens in most cities provide this service. Many grocery stores participate by sending "just before" best by products (especially frozen) to these charities.

Not sure what Biden is doing other than another "feel good" publicity stunt for his left base.

rehajm said...

Trash vs garbage: Back in the day some of the communities in the Boston suburbs had these little pails buried in the yard where you were supposed to collet your plant waste. No meat. An ancient truck would come by once a week and collect. The other was the usual household waste and you had to haul to the landfill yourself…

I forget which was which. I think the compost was garbage?

typingtalker said...

From Microsoft Copilot AI ...

Science fiction offers a glimpse into the future of food and how it could be produced sustainably, efficiently, and with minimal environmental impact. Here are some examples of science fiction foods:

o Clone-Farmed Long Pig from Transmetropolitan
o Ameglian Major Cow from The Hitchhiker's Guide series
o Spice Weasel Spice from Futurama
o Evil Ted's Special Cookies
o The White Witch's Turkish Delight
o The Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster
o Fry's Worm Egg Salad Sandwich

Problem Solved.

imTay said...

Typing talker forgot Sweeney Todd’s meat pies.

rehajm said...

I approve of mandating the serving of three day old sushi to all California legislators…and the CA Bar.

tommyesq said...

The legislation also requires every city and county to reduce the volume of organic waste that goes into landfills by 75 percent by 2025, compared with 2014 levels.

Kinda screws municipalities that had created viable organic waste diversion programs prior to 2014 - what are they going to have to do to meet this arbitrary percentage?

tommyesq said...

TypingTalker - I think Asimov's mycogen microfood - yeasts flavored to taste like real food - is the closest thing to present reality.

Breezy said...

Let’s create food waste collection areas in the regions where the over-populated wild boars roam. We’ll attract them, plump them up, and serve them for dinner. Win-win.

Conrad said...

People and businesses throw stuff away that's unwanted, or that can't be matched to someone who does want it without incurring additional costs that neither side is willing to pay. What's wrong with throwing stuff away if that's the most economically efficient solution for dealing with it?

gilbar said...

and.. WHY?

Wince said...

rehajm said...
Trash vs garbage: Back in the day some of the communities in the Boston suburbs had these little pails buried in the yard where you were supposed to collet your plant waste.

In my town, every week two separate collections: an on property garbage pick-up and a curbside trash pick-up.

Interesting thing, the garbage collectors would fan out on to people’s property to pull the pales, and were so regular they knew where to find it.

We didn’t have in ground storage, but a garbage pale under a latched porch that they would open.

I believe our garbage was taken to the pig farm on the edge of town.

tim maguire said...

In our city, we have 3 bins--recycling, garbage, and "organic waste" (more than just compost, it incudes most biodegradable objects). Recycling and organic waste pick-up is free. You pay for garbage based on the size of your container--the smallest one is very cheap, the medium one is 3X the price of the small, and the large is 2X the price of the medium.

The garbage bin is picked up every 2 weeks and our medium is rarely more than half full. Most people's recycling bin is bigger than their garbage bin.

None of this is mandatory. Just some minor financial incentive and peer pressure is enough to get almost 100% participation.

Birches said...

Doesn't the organic stuff thrown away help the landfills decompose better? The landfill where I grew up closed awhile ago and now has houses surrounding it. I think it's a park. Why is this not good anymore?

Enigma said...

Food quality versus the blue electorate versus food economy. I'm sure that the blue city Whole Foods shoppers will return to canned peas and canned chili because it lasts forever. They will choose to avoid luxury out-of-season fresh fruits and veggies imported from Mexico and Argentina.

Be healthy. Eat fresh foods shipped half way around the world. Be green. Don't eat foods shipped half way around the world and prone to rotting in a few days.

Wince said...

As teens, we’d drive up to the pig farm at night, do donuts in the mud and stir-up the swarms of hundreds if not thousands of rats that infested the pigsties.

Dave Begley said...

Just leave us alone.

I refuse to recycle. When will that be a crime?

Wince said...

The rats would scatter like massive, dense waves of rodents on the run, while others would just perch on every horizontal rail of the pens surrounding the pigs.

Bob Boyd said...

White House Announces Strategy to Keep Edible Food Out of Landfills - Seagulls Hardest Hit.

God of the Sea People said...

"Extending the shelf life of foods" just sounds like making food more preservative-laden and less healthy.

God of the Sea People said...

Dave, I refuse to recycle as well. It isn't mandatory in my town, but it is a pain in the ass. Recycling is basically a virtue signal for making the anxiety-prone perpetual guilt brigade feel better about themselves. It is less cost efficient to recycle most materials than just throwing it away. There are few places that actually recycle these materials domestically. For a long time America's stuff was shipped to China to be recycled, but even they don't want our garbage anymore. So municipalities have to figure out what to do with all of this recycled garbage that no one wants. I think some places just dump it in a landfill anyway.

JES said...

I have never ever considered putting my food waste in the garbage. It gets composted. Isn't that the same thing that happens in a landfill? I don't get it. Also, I shop at a grocery store that sells overstock and past best by, all at half price or less than big supermarkets. I feel fine.

Jamie said...

Have they noticed it's an election year? And one in which Everyman America is feeling the pinch at the grocery store?

This just seems really tone-deaf, aside from any other consideration.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

So now we'll have armed government compost cops roaming the land inspecting your garbage, which according to current law ceases to be "your property" after being moved to the curb for pick-up. I'm old enough to remember when Environmental Science best practices (my buddy was majoring in that program) dictated encouraging people to include organic waste in their rubbish instead of composting, because the organic matter helped other things like paper deteriorate faster and we were capturing the methane anyway: win-win.

Funny how yesterday's trust the science win-win is today's crime.

The Skeptic said...

More government overreach. If recycling were a good idea, the market would provide incentives to recycle. Recycling is just another government boondoggle where Karens get to tell Normals what to do--and funnel money to their comrades in crime through NGO grants and no-bid contracts. Maybe government should be a little more worried about stopping real crime (you know, murder, rape, larceny and the like) and a little less worried about making us all poorer by mandating uneconomic behaviors.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Kinda screws municipalities that had created viable organic waste diversion programs prior to 2014 - what are they going to have to do to meet this arbitrary percentage?

Excellent point Tommy of how government screws people who were already doing the right thing in service of their impossible goals. Perfect example of Central Planning Failure.

Leland said...

Pointless. The market has already resolved this issue with companies doing separation at the landfills to create reusable natural gas. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bps-archaea-energy-achieves-major-130000104.html

No surprise California and Biden are opposed to free market solutions.

GRW3 said...

San Antonio figured a clever way to enforce recycling. They only pick up garbage once a week. You get one garbage can that works with their trucks, and one, each, inorganic and organic recycle. No, you can't replace one of the recycles with a second garbage can. No, you can't decline the recycle cans, and you're charged for them use it or not. Bigger cans are available at a substantial upcharge. Small households can get smaller cans, if desired for convenience and handling but the charge is the same. So, defensively, I recycle. My wife is a semi-invalid, so I do all the cooking. To make my life simpler and reduce kitchen time, we use paper plates and they can go in the organic recycle. There are weeks the organic recycle goes to the curb with nothing but paper plates in it. I pay for the pickup every week, whether I use it or not so I use it regardless of the load.

amr said...

On my first reading of the excerpt, I ask myself "What is a bioga?"
Maybe it's that I'm learning Spanish right now, but a hyphen would have made "bio-gas" immediately parseable. (As is the less-preferred spelling "parseable" over "par-sable".)

Rusty said...

CAlifornia.
Recycle or the dog gets it.

Levi Starks said...

It will likely cost more to divert uneaten food from the landfill than it cost to produce it in the first place.
Basically they’ve figured out a way to tax it at both ends.
They should consider Mexican cat ranching.

Jersey Fled said...

I’m. All for it as long as it’s voluntary

Smilin' Jack said...

“White House Announces Strategy to Keep Edible Food Out of Landfills”

Even more wasteful than landfills are cemeteries. They take up a lot of prime real estate and waste tons of material that could have made perfectly good Soylent Green.

MadisonMan said...

When I peel carrots or parsnips, I sometimes think "Too bad me don't have a slop bucket for the pigs" But pigs in the city are a no-go. (Except for that pig Rudy on the near west side)
At present we have vegetable ends in the freezer for the next time we make chicken stock (there are also chicken bones in the freezer for that). Usually the dog gets a lot of cooked vegetables after the broth is made.
Are chicken bones food scraps? Kinda hard to eat them.

ron winkleheimer said...

Evil Ted's Special Cookies

So AI is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan?

MadTownGuy said...

More government. Sure, that'll work.

"California is furthest along. Since 2022, the state has required grocery stores to donate, not throw away, 'the maximum amount of edible food that would otherwise be disposed,' or face fines."

Food previously considered unsafe is now being donated to the deplorables. But is it about fighting hunger, or about coercion and collecting fines?

retail lawyer said...

Next up: dog poop in landfills.

Ice Nine said...

Sure, give usable food to hungry people, whatever. But, am I missing something here: Compostable stuff that goes into landfills composts there just the same as it does in a "composting facility ' - and, amazingly enough, as a bonus, it fills the landfill with fine, you know, landfill.

Tommy Duncan said...

What is the difference between "biogas" and cow farts?

Kate said...

Like @tim maguire we have a recycle can that is provided for free. We pay only for the garbage can. It's great because we generate 2 cans worth. (We have a lot of cardboard waste.)

What I don't understand is how an organic waste can is used. That stuff is wet and slimy. How is the can dumped without everything just sticking to the side?

Ice Nine said...

Recycling is of course a joke. This has been documented repeatedly.

One of my favorite things to do is pointedly put the wrong stuff in the wrong receptacle when there are those three cans that you are supposed to ponder for a moment and then divvy your stuff up among them. It's a small pleasure but it tickles me.

Rick67 said...

As much as I resent the government once again trying to engineer our behavior, I am largely sympathetic to this cause. I recycle as much as we can, and it helps our city has exceptional recycling service. I used to help with an outdoor worship service for the homeless, where people received "manna bags", and I broke down the cardboard boxes, collected plastic bottles (it gets *hot* in Louisiana during the summer), took it away to be recycled.

In response to Ice Nine above, yes, I've seen articles and videos arguing that recycling is largely a facade. Most stuff we put out for recycling ends up in landfills. Which leaves me wondering, Why then the recycling service? Why bother with the giant bins, with the trucks, with the personnel, with the sorting facility (which I visited several years ago)?

I have been to food distribution events where food that would otherwise be tossed out (past "best by" date) is given away. Some is fine. Some was pretty rough. I like the idea. Although as always I have concerned about *how* the State will try to make this happen.

Mason G said...

"So now we'll have armed government compost cops roaming the land inspecting your garbage..."

My trash can is in the alley. I put stuff in a different can I keep in the back yard and once a week, take that bag out to the trash can in the alley. Right before taking the bag out, I pick up all the dogshit in the yard and add it to the bag. If armed government compost cops want to rummage through that, I guess they can.

Gospace said...

Thigh it's illegal, some people near me still burn most of their waste. Amazingly, no one turns them in!

I live on a small 8.5 acre plot. Small for the area. We don't compost. Compost piles attract all sorts of unwanted critters. And- to do it properly- actually require proper care and feeding.

If you have enough land, and are careful to do it with just organic waste, you could just scatter your waste randomly and nature will take care of it. Bones and all. But in village areas, you'd very quickly overwhelm the land's carrying capacity to do that. And cities? Well, that's why we have landfills- to get the waste and mess and disease and unwanted stuff away from people.

One of the nearby towns has a composting site where people can bring organic material to. Yard waste, kitchen scraps, etc. And a big sign that says= "No animal carcasses". Another rural problem- what to do with roadkill...

I'm certain mandatory composting will work as well as all other government directed waste management solutions- not well at all.

There is only one government directed anti-waste campaign that I can recall that ever worked- the anti-littering campaign, combined with bottle and can deposit laws that existed not for recycling purposes, but to reduce litter. Americans for some reason took that to heart, and littering soon became a minor problem. Where do we see litter and trash on the streets today? In heavily demoncRAT center cities. And migrant communities.

Temujin said...

Your government's answer for the way to extend food shelf life will come down to a negotiation with food manufacturers. They'll both agree to simply extend the expiration date on the package. Instead of 'exp July 2024', they'll make it 'best through Dec 2025'. There. Fixed.

As for mandated composting. We had our family in Seattle visit us in Florida recently. Our grandkids were wondering why we threw out food scraps, or put them down the garbage disposal. They asked, "Don't you compost?". They've been taught. Frankly, if we started burying our food scraps in the backyard here in South Florida, we'd have a fire ant nest rising 3 feet into the air in no time.

As for redirecting unused food products from restaurants and hotels, then residences, I'll just let you know that the recycling bin you think is going to a recycling center? Much of it is ending up in the landfills with the other trash. Recycling centers are overflowing with goods, much of which they cannot actually recycle. Too many materials mixed, too much that cannot be saved and reused. Plus the loads are just overwhelming. And so, they end up being picked up from the recycling centers and brought to the place where the rest of it lies: your local landfill.

Now you can add the leftover foods to those items that'll make double trips. One- to the mandated donation site. Two- back to the landfill as garbage. But it'll make some of you feel more noble. Honestly, I don't dislike the idea of composting. IF I lived in a place where the soil was rich and deep. If I had the spot to do it. But mandating it is just wrong. Teach it as an option. Allow people to try it out for themselves.

Yancey Ward said...

Food will now get more expensive as a result.

Aggie said...

When I read the words 'Extend shelf life', that's where the concept has lost me. It's a wrong-headed idea grounded in the bureaucracy, and dreamed up by someone that knows little about food, is my guess.

What happens now, in the world of perishable foods? Don't food banks take in goods that are approaching their Sell-by date, that have been moved off the first-tier shelves in anticipation of this? Don't produce and meat departments already move their waste to the livestock producers to be used as feed sources> Restaurants and breweries and so on do the same.

It looks to me like something that's been declared a problem, in search of a good reason, so they can reach their objective: Permanent taxpayer funding and administrative growth. What they should be targeting is incremental improvement. But the bad news is, that's 'measurable', which means there might be targets to be met, which means 'work'.

Old and slow said...

"Where do we see litter and trash on the streets today?"

Been on an Indian reservation recently? The ground sparkles with the shards of broken beer bottles. It's almost impressive how much broken glass so few people can generate. Especially when you consider that all of it had be imported illegally, at least on the Navajo Nation. That crying "Indian" in the ad from the 1970's really failed to convince the actual natives not to litter.

loudogblog said...

Here's the thing I don't get about this landfill/composting debate.

In California, they passed a law saying that we have to separate our food waste out of our trash to keep them out of landfills. They said that putting food waste into the landfills produced methane. (Which is bad.)

So now the city has to send the food waste off to be turned into compost...but composting food also produces methane. It might actually produce even more methane because it's so efficient.

Tina Trent said...

I recycle non-meat food scraps, cardboard, untreated lumber, etc. without having to be told to do so. I'd install a below-ground meat bin, but I don't want bears, especially clever bears. I bring recycling to the dump to get half-off my already cheap garbage fees, but I know the glass and plastic just get bundled into the regular garbage. Recycling is a virtue-signaling fraud, and all those different trucks burn twice the fuel it would take to admit that they're all actually heading for the same landfill.

It's nice to live in a relatively functional state.

Aluminum and copper wire are about all that can be re-used. That's why recyclers pay for it. In the city, I used to leave it neatly on my side yard for the drunks to sell for beer money. Here, I give my cans to a handiman/artist who melts them down and makes anthill sculptures. But I wouldn't want to encourage too much public art.

John Ray said...

Tommy D @8:57

Tommy, cow farts are methane. Bio-gas is holy smoke.

jj121957 said...

Here in California, we used to have one large dumpster in the alley that was shared among 2 or 3 houses and picked up twice a week. Now we have 3 smaller dumpsters for trash, recyclables and green waste. they're now located in the front driveway, and we roll them out to the street once a week to be picked up by 3 separate garbage trucks. The result is trucks polluting the air and damaging the streets instead of the alley.

JaimeRoberto said...

I don't like food waste or any waste for that matter, but I dislike government meddling in every little aspect of life even more.

Gospace said...

Old and slow said...
"Where do we see litter and trash on the streets today?"

Been on an Indian reservation recently? The ground sparkles with the shards of broken beer bottles.


Well, I knew that. But I thought it was unlawful to point out any shortcomings in indigenous communities.

Marcus Bressler said...

The only reason I recycled at my condo was that it saved me from taking the trash out so often. I only recycled plastic bottles and aluminum cans. At my new place, I bought a restaurant equipment "slim jim" trash can and I take out the trash much less often.
Recycling is a joke. Even the NYTimes, several years ago, published a report that recycling takes more energy (wasteful) than the so-called benefits. My buddy was down here a couple a weeks ago and when he finished a bottled water, he asked me, "Do you recycle?". Just said, "nope", no explanation. I feel NO shame that the hypocritical Greens try to throw on us.
In my Palm Beach County, they used to ship the "waste" to be "recycled" to China. Yeahrite. As if they did that over in that country. Then China lowered the contamination rate to 0.5% which has been impossible to hit for about 6 years now. PBCo PAYS to have their glass waste taken away. Nothing wrong with landfills. We are not running out of paper, glass, or plastic -- and aluminum cans are not worth the effort. Individuals can be paid 50-60 cents a lb depending on if the aluminum is thoroughly washed and crushed or received as is.
Finally, if you want to do any recycling, go ahead. I'm not doing it -- there is no rational reason to do so. And these people, such as the Greenies mentioned or posting here, what is wrong with throwing away foodstuffs? Some supermarkets locally donate to the food pantries. I know this personally. It is NOT your business and government only gets involved, to create more infrastructure, more jobs to deal out to friends at high salaries and benefits. I'm against littering and LESS government control of our lives and the Karens here and there butting their know-nothing noses into our business.

Former Illinois resident said...

Our local Aldi's says it donated all surplus produce to our local Meals on Wheels kitchen, which coincidentally is across the street from that Aldi store. "Surplus" means unsold, but also unsaleable prepared-produce bags, where one or more items are unsaleable-spoiled but remainder are fine - those bags of oranges, lemons, apples, onions, etc. I think it's a win-win good deed. Same Aldi's will drastically reduce prices of overstocked produce and close-to-expiration refrigerated foods; have found some exceptional deals on excellent-condition foods.

Dumpster-divers often rescue unsaleable foods from grocery store dumpsters.

Old and slow said...

Supermarket "shelf life" standards are ridiculous. Food banks and charities distribute the ageing food and it is perfectly good. I've been using this food for years. The best part is that poor people tend to have poor taste and don't know what to do with most vegetables. Also, it is often the more expensive products that don't sell quickly enough at the grocery stores. My local food bank gets expired food from the Sedona grocery stores. Red peppers, fresh fennel, dried cherries, whole crates of heirloom cherry tomatoes. These things go begging while cans of sweetcorn and Mac and cheese are snapped up.

The Vault Dweller said...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, and mandate composting, Governments are instituted among Men.

Narayanan said...

Not sure what Biden is doing other than another "feel good" publicity stunt for his left base.
===============
EPA has cleared use of Presidential Diapers as compost accelerator in select locations!

stlcdr said...

They can’t create a proper recycle chain for what can be recycled. How the hell is this supposed to happen?

typingtalker said...

Let's create a corps of pickers to range suburban back yards just before Thanksgiving to harvest home-grown tomatoes (and their soon-to-be-frozen-un-composted vines) that would otherwise be lost from the American home-grown food chain.