NEWMOA has been supporting three initiatives focused on reducing wasted food and food recovery:

• #EndFoodWaste: Collaborating with the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency (OCRRA) to educate residents in Onondaga County, NY (Syracuse and surrounding communities) about problems with wasting food and the opportunities to reduce and divert food waste to compost. The initiative targets low-income residents, recent immigrants, and communities that speak English as a second language by engaging community groups that represent them to work with them to distribute educational tools and to hold community events and activities.
• Promoting Strategies to Keep Food Waste Out of Landfills: Providing and training to reduce the generation of wasted food by households, promote backyard composting, and evaluate the feasibility of food rescue and donation in rural areas of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. This Project was funded by the USDA and concluded in 2019. The Project produced outreach fact sheets, brochures, and workshop materials that organizations can customize with their local information.
• Facilitating a joint NEWMOA - Northeast Recycling Council (NERC) Food Recovery Workgroup to:
  • Support regional discussion of emerging food waste issues and state regulatory and policy developments
  • Coordinate and hold information-sharing and training events to address policy, regulatory, and technical challenges
  • Conduct research and analysis
  • Provide support for state program implementation
  • Assist state programs with specific projects

The Workgroup prepared a summary of available Food Waste Calculators that it periodically updates as new calculators become available.

Why Focus on Food Waste?

EPA has estimated that in 2018 food waste was approximately 21.6 percent of the municipal solid waste (MSW) stream. Food waste presents unique management challenges for state and local governments. There are significant opportunities to promote waste reduction and increase diversion of these materials from disposal in landfills and incinerators. The technologies for converting these wastes to energy through anaerobic digestion (AD) are rapidly improving, and there is growing interest in expanding composting and AD capacity in the northeast. State agencies are working with local governments and waste haulers to address challenges with food waste collection and storage.