You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

Linda Norris-Waldt
Deputy Director

It’s been a good four years for organics and composting when it comes to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Consider this: the EPA’s first recycling strategy, the first of its three-part circular economy series released in 2021, only mentioned the word “compost” four times and included a recommendation “to expand the scope of the National Recycling Strategy beyond municipal solid waste to include …organics (food and yard waste).” We weren’t even considered in the scheme of recycling as we started this decade!

And compare the release just before the December holidays of the “third leg” of that three-part stool, the National Plastics Pollution Strategy. The discussion around composting and compostables shows how far EPA has shifted its focus to organics recycling in its Sustainable Materials Management Program. We at the USCC are glad to see the fruits of the relationship we’ve developed with the EPA, which now includes the following:

• Regular meetings with the EPA’s food waste team.
• More relevant connections between the objectives of the EPA and the Department of Agriculture, which developed a food waste program late in the last decade with little connection to the EPA’s work.
• A recognition of composting and organics recycling as a key part of U.S. recycling programs.
• A decades-overdue, but well-researched, overhaul of the Food Waste Hierarchy to the new Wasted Food Scale.

With organics – including paper – comprising 64% of the waste stream and food waste itself being 22%, the EPA has dedicated significant research to food waste. And with 66 million tons of this food waste going to landfill/incineration, it is prudent and imperative to have government and business at all levels focused on organic material. Why? Municipal solid waste landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States, accounting for approximately 14.4% of these emissions in 2022 with food scrap being a significant source of the methane.

Plastic Pollution Prevention Strategy: The Third Strategy

Here’s a quick look at some of the highs and lows of the latest strategy released in December:

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As with the Food Waste Strategy report released last year, need for commercial compost infrastructure and data is discussed at length:

“D4.1: Improve data and evaluate maps of available composting infrastructure and determine infrastructure needs, including considerations for communities with environmental justice concerns.”

The recommendation mentions that a gap and needs assessment with the goal of expanding composting access is needed, something recommended by the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act we have lobbied for the past four years.

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USCC commented strongly in 2023 on the draft strategy that the composter business model should not require compostable products and that composter choice on whether to accept compostables is always paramount, but this was not echoed in the report. Fortunately, the EPA’S second major circular economy report, the National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics, nuances its position to declare that infrastructure expansion is not only tied to compostable products, but for increased food scrap recycling regardless of acceptance of compostable products.

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The EPA report includes field testing alongside lab testing as a recommended method of ensuring breakdown.

A USCC comment made in 2023 on the draft Plastic Pollution Strategy:

“Expanded field and lab testing could inform standards reviews and ensure that certified compostable products will break down as intended in a variety of composting systems.”

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The report includes several recommendations surrounding product reuse as a method to cut down on single-use plastic, something composters will be glad to hear.

See more on the latest report here.

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All in all, between the increased focus by the USDA through the Compost and Food Waste Reduction Grants, the EPA’s Solid Waste Infrastructure grants, Recycling and Outreach Education grants, and Climate Pollution Reduction grants, funding for composting in the past four years has been at an all-time high at the federal level. The studies done by the EPA on Landfill Methane and Food Waste Pathways have put a spotlight on the potential of the composting of inedible food waste. We are the ultimate food scrap recyclers!

 And with relationship building, we can say that every year post-COVID, we have been fortunate to have EPA participation at our annual conference. Don’t miss this year’s EPA presentation by Lana Suarez, associate chief in the Materials Management Branch at noon on Jan. 29, during COMPOST2025 in Phoenix.

The past four years have produced an alphabet soup of federal support, and we will be watching what the next four years hold for the EPA.