Annual food waste in Maine emits as much greenhouse gas as nearly 400,000 cars driven for one year. (Photo by Paul Mansfield Photography/ Getty Images)
Maine stands apart from the rest of New England by not having what is known as a food waste ban on the books.
While some advocates say such legislation is the gold standard for mitigating waste as a means to achieve climate goals and fight hunger, the state’s most recent attempt to pass a measure was thwarted by a high price tag. Now, as Maine updates its comprehensive plan for addressing climate change, state leaders are still calling for a new approach.
Thanks to a first-of-its-kind study completed earlier this year, there is concrete data showing that more than 360,000 tons of food is wasted or lost in Maine annually. While much of that could be recovered to feed the one in eight Mainers who face hunger, it instead rots in landfills creating methane, a harmful greenhouse gas.
Annual food waste in Maine emits as much greenhouse gas as nearly 400,000 cars driven for one year. But as the state has taken several concrete steps to combat climate change, there’s been more emphasis on heat pumps and electric vehicles than the fruits and vegetables left to rot in the back of the fridge.
With transportation contributing nearly half of all greenhouse gas emissions in Maine, encouraging a switch to electric vehicles can feel like a tangible, attainable solution, explained Peter Blair, policy and advocacy director for the national environmental advocacy organization Just Zero.
Whereas reducing food waste, he added, is a more abstract problem to solve.
Maine has ambitions to cut food waste in half by 2030, but absent a food waste ban, Nora Bosworth, a staff attorney for Conservation Law Foundation, said it isn’t clear how the state plans to achieve that goal.
“How we can get there is through a food waste ban,” Bosworth said. “That’s how other states have gotten there, it’s how the rest of New England is getting there and it’s how Maine should get there.”
Maine’s costly attempt at a food waste ban
Food waste bans prioritize the donation or recycling of organic material, rather than sending it to landfills or incinerators.
Diverting food waste from landfills has multiple benefits, Bosworth explained, including preventing those foods from creating methane gas and conserving space in landfills, which has been an issue in Maine.
“If we want to lower greenhouse gas emissions, then stopping food from rotting in our landfills is one of the smartest, no-brainer ways to do that,” Bosworth said.
But the laws also have a humanitarian benefit, Bosworth said. A lot of food that gets thrown away is still edible, so rather than occupying space in landfills it could be donated to food banks or utilized in other ways to feed people who are hungry.
Connecticut was the first New England state to pass a food waste law back in 2011. Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island followed suit in the years after, and New Hampshire joined them just last year.
Annual food waste in Maine emits as much greenhouse gas as nearly 400,000 cars, study finds
Blair said every state has taken a different approach to enforce the policy, but no one is going through trash bags to ensure compliance.
While it largely falls on state environmental agencies, he said states usually take a more educational approach. This could include ensuring the people subject to the ban know what is required of them and compiling resources such as hauling services and composting sites.
Maine tried to catch up with its regional peers when state Rep. Stanley Zeigler (D-Montville) introduced LD 1009 in March 2023.
The proposal would have banned large food waste generators such as schools, hospitals, food producers and others from disposing of food waste if they were close to a facility that could compost or otherwise dispose of the waste. The bill outlined a phased approach that gradually expanded the requirement based on location and the amount of waste generated.
During the public hearing for that bill, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection testified in opposition, saying that it would require additional staff to help people understand if they are subject to the ban and how to comply. Additionally, the department argued that the state lacks the infrastructure for food waste collection, processing and composting for the ban to be effective.
An amended version of it passed the Maine House of Representatives and Senate, but died due to a lack of funding. The bill had a fiscal note north of $550,000 for five staff positions and other associated costs for the department.
Blair said the fiscal note was “ridiculous” and much higher than his organization has seen in other states that have passed similar laws.
And while he is sympathetic to Maine being a rural state and acknowledged that driving long distances to a recycling facility could negate the environmental benefits, Blair said the geographic limitations in the bill were meant to address those concerns.
As for infrastructure, Bosworth said other New England states saw new hauling services and composting facilities pop up as a result of the new laws. Even if Maine doesn’t have all of those pieces in place now, she argued that is the “beautiful part of legislation like this.”
“If you build it, they will come,” Bosworth said.
Massachusetts, for example, saw the number of businesses with food waste collection programs more than double in the five years after it implemented a 1-ton per week limit on food waste landfilling in 2014. It also saw annual food waste decrease by 210,000 tons, according to a state report.
Zeigler termed out of the House, so he won’t serve in the coming session, but Bosworth and Blair are interested in working on a similar bill next year.
A mounting trash problem
As part of its counter to LD 1009, the DEP said it already has a program that uses a portion of solid waste facility licensing fees to fund small projects that help divert waste from landfills. The grant program has expanded in recent years, the department told the Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
Last spring, the department offered seven grants totalling just over $100,000 to expand backyard composting in southern Maine, boost recycling efforts and support food scrap recovery and diversion programs in central, eastern and southern Maine.
Maine opens door for landfill expansion despite community objections
As the state offers these incentives to reroute waste, landfills are filling faster and faster. A report released in early January found that the total waste put in landfills increased 34% since 2018. Waste generation continues to increase at approximately 5% per year.
Just over half of Maine’s landfill waste ends up in the Juniper Ridge landfill located in Old Town and Alton. The facility is owned by the state but managed by the Bureau of General Services, which contracts with NEWSME Landfill Operations, a subsidiary of the waste management company Casella.
Juniper Ridge is expected to reach capacity in 2028. The state has signaled its support to expand the facility despite objections from environmental advocates, the local community and the Penobscot Nation, whose reservation sits just five miles from the landfill.
The state’s hope of reducing food waste could help alleviate the mounting trash problem.
A draft of the state’s updated climate action plan sets a target of cutting food waste in half by 2030. To do so, it suggests implementing reporting requirements for large producers of food waste and maximizing the recovery of food through tax credits and supporting food donation infrastructure.
The Maine Climate Council has until December 1 to update the four-year plan that outlines strategies for reducing carbon emissions and introducing cleaner energy sources in the state.
The reporting requirement would help large food waste generators to better understand their waste streams and consider other options for disposal, the DEP said. It would also help the state identify areas where additional infrastructure for food waste collection, composting and anaerobic digestion would be most beneficial.
However, the department said it would support the reporting requirement if given additional resources for implementation.
While it’s not a problem to have more information about the food waste being generated, Blair said the state needs to be more ambitious. Reporting requirements alone feel redundant after the food waste study that was completed this year, he added.
“But the question is: ‘What are we going to do with the information once we have it?’” Blair said.
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