Food scrap waste has decreased slightly since a law banning it from landfills went into effect four years ago, according to a recently-released report from the state. In terms of tonnage, food scrap waste in the landfill has decreased 13% since 2018. Food scraps make up about the same share of landfill waste as before because the amount of garbage overall has also decreased.
鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to say that there鈥檚 a significant difference, but it is demonstrating some progress,鈥� said Josh Kelly, solid waste program manager at the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. 鈥淚 would say, in short, there鈥檚 promising data and we have more work to do.鈥�
Additionally, for the first time, the state has an estimate for the percentage of food waste kept out of the garbage: between 50.7% and 56.8%. That number is sum of the combined effort of residents, businesses, waste haulers, and manufacturers. For households, the most common way to divert food waste, by far, is by composting, with 43% of households reporting they composted food waste, either at home or with municipal waste services.