Next month, New Hampshire launches a new law to cut food waste, and in the process eventually save landfill space and reduce the methane gas emissions that drive climate change.听Under the new law, similar to those in neighboring states, facilities that create more than a ton of food waste a week will redirect that waste from landfills and incinerators to alternative management facilities that either recover edible food to feed people and animals, or use composting or anaerobic digestion to process wasted food into useable byproducts.
Hospitals, colleges, restaurants, correctional facilities, stadiums, convention centers, large hotels, and big-box grocery stores are all likely contributors on the ton-a-week-plus side, but no producer of food waste will be required to transport that waste unless a management facility with adequate capacity is within 20 miles.
The law came out of the state鈥檚 Solid Waste Working Group headed by Rep. Karen Ebel, a New London Democrat, as a key part of the state goal to reduce disposal of solid waste tonnage by 25% by 2030 and 45% by 2050.
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Author: Tom Irwin, New Hampshire Bulletin
Photo by Denise Nys: