The Waste to Wealth program seeks to encourage a composting infrastructure that is locally distributed and possesses a diversity of scales, feedstock materials, and end-uses for compost products. For more information, see ILSR’s report on “The State of Composting in the US” for a national snapshot of composting policy and models to replicate.
As of 2018, the state of California reported a 65 percent diversion rate for all materials and more than 140,000 green jobs in its recycling sector. This success is attributable to California’s 1989 Integrated Waste Management Act and the state’s more recent efforts to increase organics recycling through the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), a state agency that coordinates the state’s multiple waste and recycling management programs.… Read More
Seeking to further California’s waste diversion rate and thereby preserve landfill capacity for the future, the state enacted Assembly Bill 1826 on September 28, 2014. Also known as the Mandatory Commercial Organics Recycling (MORe) program, the bill requires commercial generators of organic waste to compost or anaerobically digest their food waste, landscape and other green waste, food-soiled paper, and nonhazardous wood waste. The law’s staggered dates of enforcement will allow adjustment time to develop greater capacity in California’s existing organic waste processing infrastructure.… Read More
As of 2018, the state of California reported a 65 percent diversion rate for all materials and more than 140,000 green jobs in its recycling sector.[1] This success is attributable to California’s 1989 Integrated Waste Management Act[2] and the state’s more recent efforts to increase organics recycling through the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), … Read More
Seeking to further California’s waste diversion rate and thereby preserve landfill capacity for the future, the state enacted Assembly Bill 1826 on September 28, 2014. Also known as the Mandatory Commercial Organics Recycling (MORe) program, the bill requires commercial generators of organic waste to compost or anaerobically digest their food waste, landscape and other green waste, food-soiled paper, and nonhazardous wood waste. The law’s staggered dates of enforcement will allow adjustment time to develop greater capacity in California’s existing organic waste processing infrastructure.… Read More
In 2009, Maine adopted significant changes to its compost facility rules in an effort to advance the practice of composting. The revision of Maine’s composting rules was mandated by Chapter 139 of the 2007 Legislative Resolves, which directed the Departments of Agriculture and Environmental Protection to collaborate to 1) ease the regulatory burden on agricultural composting operations and 2) revise the volume and types of materials that may be composted without a permit from the state. … Read More
Denver is one of several communities to mandate the use of compost in disturbed soil and new landscaping as a means of improving the ability of soil to conserve and manage water. As water stress and pressures have become increasing concerns in western US states, simple, cost-effective solutions such as requiring a minimum amount of organic matter to … Read More
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s data on municipal solid waste generation and management, an estimated 52.4 percent of yard trimmings were “grasscycled” or composted in 2018, while only 6.1 percent of food scraps were composted. Policies that ban food scraps from landfills can have a tremendous and immediate effect on diverting organics from the … Read More
In addition to implementing yard waste reduction strategies, such as grasscycling, some jurisdictions have banned yard trimmings from landfills. Where such bans exist, public waste management authorities often provide residents the option of curbside collection if the yard debris is “source-separated” from other waste or public drop-off locations. Landfill bans, coupled with publicly provided alternatives and … Read More