Michael Sol Warren reports for NJ.com
America has a major food waste problem, and New Jersey is no exception.
Upwards of 40% of food in America is never eaten and just gets thrown out, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It’s a problem that has plagued the Garden State for years, but legislation has also stalled for years in Trenton as other nearby states like New York and Vermont passed their own laws.
In 2017, Gov. Chris Christie signed a law setting a goal to cut New Jersey’s food waste in half by 2030. One way to do that is to expand composting, and a bill sitting on Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk now tries to do just that.
The bill, S1206/A3726, would require businesses and organizations that generate large amounts of food waste — at least 52 tons per year — to separate it from other garbage and recycle it. That’s big for the growth of “food waste facilities,” where food recycling is done through methods like composting or anaerobic digestion, which produces methane.
But in last-minute amendments, the bill’s definition of “food waste facilities” was expanded to include incinerators for four years and landfills indefinitely — the two least preferred methods of handling food waste, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
That change has angered advocacy groups, who are concerned that the amendments undercut long-sought efforts to boost New Jersey composting.
“We’re saying now that the landfilling of food waste is recycling. And incinerating food waste is recycling,” Marie Kruzan, the executive director of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers, said of the amended bill. “No one else in the country says that, but New Jersey does.”
The inclusion of incinerators, in particular, is stoking outrage. New Jersey is home to four power-generating incinerators, all owned by the company Covanta. Those incinerators are all located in poor communities and frequently raise environmental justice concerns and worries over public health effects.
“This bill would effectively generate more greenhouse gases and contribute to air pollution in overburdened communities through the burning and burying of waste that could be diverted via more sustainable mechanisms like composting,” the Ironbound Community Corporation said in a previous statement opposing the late amendments.
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New Jersey passes food waste bill favoring landfills and WTE
