2. Landfill Waste Emissions

Diverting food and agricultural waste from landfills provides an opportunity to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.²³ Such a strategy could result in quick and powerful climate benefits.

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systems.²⁴ Food waste alone makes up more than 20% of the materials discarded.²⁵ Once in a landfill, organic matter decomposes without the presence of oxygen, releasing large amounts of methane as a result.²⁶ EPA estimates that organic matter in landfills was responsible for 17% of U.S. methane emissions in 2018.²⁷ A 2016 study, however, found that EPA underestimates the amount of municipal waste disposed of by a factor of two, indicating that the methane emissions from organic matter might actually be much higher.²⁸

Food waste in landfills typically has a high moisture and organic matter content, making it an especially large contributor to methane emissions soon after disposal. As a result, food waste is responsible for as much as 90% of methane emissions from landfills during the initial years when they are less likely to be capped.²⁹ While reliable data on the sources of food waste are lacking, one industry-funded report estimates that residential food waste is responsible for 44% of post-farm food waste.³⁰ The commercial sector, which includes restaurants and grocery stores, is estimated to dispose of 44% of post-farm food waste, while waste from institutions and industry operations make up the remaining 12%.³¹

European countries have demonstrated that organics can be diverted from landfills in a cost-effective and environmentally beneficial way.

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into effect in France banning supermarkets larger than 4,305 square feet in size from throwing away or destroying food.³⁵

In 2016, EPA issued new rules requiring installation of systems to capture landfill gas (usually comprising half methane and half CO₂) at larger municipal waste landfills constructed after July 2014, and updated landfill gas capture systems for larger existing landfills constructed after 1987.³⁶ Yet even with this additional landfill capture, some significant gaps still remain: older and smaller landfills are not covered; there is a long time lag before full compliance will be required; and the landfill gas capture is not complete.

States and municipalities have also taken action to divert organic waste from landfills. Shifting waste to composting facilities converts the waste into useful material and results in negative net emissions.³⁷ In 2012, Vermont passed the Universal Recycling Law, which, among other things, enacted a complete ban on food waste in landfills.³⁸ The ban went into effect in 2020 and applies to all households and businesses. Similarly, in 2019, New York State enacted a food waste law, which takes effect on January 1, 2022, that requires large generators of food scraps to donate excess edible food and recycle (in composting, animal feed, digester facilities, or the like) all remaining food scraps if they are located within 25 miles of an organics recycler.³⁹ Currently in New York, 97% of food scraps are dumped in landfills, generating

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over half of the state’s methane emissions,⁴⁰ so shifting this waste to facilities that do not generate methane could be significant.

Cities can also take meaningful action. San Francisco passed an ordinance in 2009 requiring all businesses and households to sort organics for collection and composting.⁴¹ San Francisco now collects more than 220,000 tons of organic waste each year, and it is considered the country’s most successful composting program.⁴² In 2014, the Seattle City Council also passed a mandatory composting ordinance.⁴³ Even though the ordinance limits fines for noncompliance to $1 for residents and $50 for commercial businesses,⁴⁴ composting collection rates went up significantly after the law went into effect in 2015.⁴⁵

Congress should design legislation banning food waste in landfills; Vermont’s Universal Recycling Law provides an ideal model. Failing national action, states and municipal governments should adopt similar laws. Given that waste from retail establishments is estimated to make up almost half of the total waste, laws that address only this portion of the waste could still have a significant impact.

*****

While what happens on cropland, pasture or grazing land, or animal production facilties is the centerpiece of the food system, activities off the farm contribute as much as the on-farm greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, just as there are many proven opportunities to make U.S. agriculture climate-neutral, there are also many demonstrated ways to significantly reduce off-farm emissions. And, as with climate-neutral farming, those opportunities will multiply once all those in the food chain set their mind to achieving this goal and develop further possibilities. Advocates should urge, and policy should mandate, that all sectors in the food system quickly move toward climate neutrality.

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Key Recommendations

• While what happens on cropland, pasture or grazing land, or animal feeding operations is the centerpiece of the food system, activities off the farm contribute as much as on-farm greenhouse gas emissions.

• EPA should update air pollution limits for fertilizer plants under its Clean Air Act authority to help reduce emissions from nitrogen fertilizer production.

• The government should support research aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions during fertilizer production.

• EPA should promulgate fuel economy standards for off-road diesel vehicles such as tractors to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, which remain a significant source of on-farm emissions.

• USDA farm programs should encourage farmers, preferably through incentives, to adopt less fuel-intensive practices and more energyefficient equipment.

• EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy should explore adopting more energy efficiency standards that would apply to appliances and processes within the agriculture and food processing sectors, such as irrigation pumps, ventilation fans, or cleaning and drying equipment.

• Americans waste about one-third of food that is produced. The vast majority of the waste is dumped in landfills, where it rots and emits methane, making landfills one of the larger sources of methane emissions in the United States. To prevent this, Congress should ban food waste in landfills and support food donations, food waste recycling, and development of composting and other recycling facilities. Failing federal action, states and municipalities should adopt such laws.

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1. See Monica Crippa et al., Food Systems Are Responsible for a Third of Global Anthropogenic GHG Emissions, 2 NATURE FOOD 198-209 (2021); Sonja Vermeulen et al., Climate Change and Food Systems, 37 ANN. REV. ENV’T & RESOURCES 195, 198-202 (2012).

2. See Crippa et al., supra note 1; see also Vermeulen et al., supra note 1, at 195 (finding that food systems contribute 19-29% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions). GRAIN, an international research and advocacy organization, estimates that emissions from the food system are as high as 44%-57% of global emissions. GRAIN, Commentary IV: Food, Climate Change, and Healthy Soils: The Forgotten Link, in TRADE & ENV’T REV.

3. Mario Giampietro, Energy Use in Agriculture, in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE SCIENCES 4 (Nature Publishing Group 2003).

4. JAYSON BECKMAN ET AL., U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, AGRICULTURE’S SUPPLY AND DEMAND FOR ENERGY AND ENERGY PRODUCTS 10 (2013) (EIB-112).

5. In 2011, ammonia production plants in the United States accounted for roughly 14% of the chemical manufacturing sector’s total carbon footprint, or about 0.1% of total emissions. Their share is expected to rise, however. Globally, ammonia production is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, representing as much as 5% of greenhouse gas emissions. While the United States accounts for only 6% of global ammonia production right now, the majority of new plants are being built in the United States or Canada. See Celeste LeCompte, Fertilizer Plants Spring Up to Take Advantage of U.S.’s Cheap Natural Gas, SCI. AM., Apr. 25, 2013, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fertilizer-plants-grow-thanks-to-cheap-natural-gas/.

6. Sonja J. Vermeulen et al., Climate Change and Food Systems, 37 ANN. REV. ENV’T RESOURCES 195–222 (2012).

7. EPA, 2017 NATIONAL NATIONAL EMISSIOINS INVENTORY DATA (2021); NUTRIEN, FACT BOOK 2018 (2018).

8. A. KOOL ET AL., BLONK CONSULTANTS, LCI DATA FOR THE CALCULATION TOOL FEEDPRINT FOR GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION OF FEED PRODUCTION AND UTILIZATION (2012); ROLF FRISCHKNECHT ET AL., SWISS CENTRE FOR LIFE CYCLE INVENTORIES, OVERVIEW AND METHODOLOGY (Ecoinvent Rep. 1) (2007).

9. INTERNATIONAL FERTILIZER INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION, FEEDING THE EARTH: ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND CO₂ EMISSIONS IN AMMONIA PRODUCTION 2 (2009).

10. Id.

11. See Gregg P. Macey, Industrial Sector, in LEGAL PATHWAYS TO DEEP DECARBONIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES 301 (Michael B. Gerrard & John C. Dernbach eds., ELI Press 2019); Jessica Wentz & David Kanter, Nitrous Oxide, in LEGAL PATHWAYS TO DEEP DECARBONIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES, supra at 916.

12. U.S. EPA, National Emissions Inventory (2017), https://edap.epa.gov/public/extensions/nei_report_2017/dashboard.html#table-db.

13. Nina Domingo et al., Air Quality-Related Health Damages of Food, 118 PROC. NAT’L ACAD. SCI. 20 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2013637118.

14. See 40 C.F.R. §60.16.

15. James Galloway et al., The Nitrogen Cascade, 53 BIOSCIENCE 341–56 (2003), https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2003)053[0341:TNC]2.0.CO;2.

16. See, e.g., Yosuke Mikami et al., Ammonia Production From Amino Acid-Based Biomass-Like Sources by Engineered Escherichia Coli, 7 AMB Express 83 (2017).

17. See, e.g., SCS Engineers, Homepage, http://www.scsengineers.com/ (last visited Nov. 30, 2020).

18. Ugo Bardi et al., Turning Electricity Into Food: The Role of Renewable Energy in the Future of Agriculture, 53 J. CLEANER PRODUCTION 224, 226 (2013).

19. Rattan Lal, Carbon Emission From Farm Operations, 30 ENV’T INT’L 981, 982 (2004).

20. See Rebecca Boehm et al., A Comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions From U.S. Household Food Choices, 79 FOOD POL’Y 67 (2018), available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306919217310552?via%3Dihub, for a life-cycle assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from consumer food purchases that incorporates post-production emissions. Although it does not encompass household transportation, preparation, storage, or waste, the Boehm et al. analysis includes food production and transportation and wholesale, retail, and restaurant activity resulting from household purchases.

21. Food producers often shift their products to foreign or secondary markets in response to decreased consumer demand rather than decrease production. The dynamics of the U.S. cheese industry serve as an illustrative example. Cheese production has grown much more rapidly than domestic consumption since 2009, yet the industry has continued to expand by increasing exports, which tripled between 2007 and 2014, and through government purchasing programs that distribute surpluses to food banks and nutrition assistance programs. See Mark O’Keefe, Emerging Economies Will Drive Future Cheese Demand, U.S. DAIRY EXPORTER BLOG, Feb. 25, 2016, http://blog.usdec.org/usdairyexporter/emergingeconomies-will-drive-future-cheese-demand; Mark Fahey, Americans Have an Insatiable Demand for Pizza Cheese, CNBC, Oct. 10, 2016, http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/04/best-cheeses-americanshave-an-insatiable-demand-for-pizza-cheese.html; Press Release, USDA, USDA Announces Plans to Purchase Surplus Cheese, Releases New Report Showing Trans-Pacific Partnership Would Create Growth for Dairy Industry (Oct. 11, 2016), https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2016/10/11/usda-announces-plans-purchase-surplus-cheese-releases-new-report. Th it is unlikely that any decrease in demand as the result of reductions in food waste would result in an equivalent decrease in production.

22. SABINE BRUESKE ET AL., OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY, U.S. MANUFACTURING ENERGY USE AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS ANALYSIS 37 tbl.2.1-16 (2012).

23. It is sometimes argued that reducing food loss will result in reduced food production and distribution. E.g., Craig Hanson et al., What’s Food Loss and Waste Got to Do With Climate Change? A Lot, Actually., WORLD RESOURCES INST., Dec. 11, 2015, http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/12/whats-food-loss-andwaste-got-do-climate-change-lot-actually. While intuitively this makes sense, there are a number of variables that make it impossible to predict what impact reduced domestic demand would have on land use, including funding for farm programs, support for biofuels, and fluctuations in global consumer demand and international commodity markets. Additionally, the amount of cropland and grazing land in the United States has stayed more or less constant since 1945, despite a radically higher supply of agricultural commodities gained through higher yields. If agriculture’s land footprint remains unchanged in the face of such significant increases in supply, it appears unlikely to be affected by relatively low fluctuations in demand stemming from lower rates of food loss. See also supra note 21 (discussing how food producers often develop new markets in response to decreased demand rather than decrease production).

24. See EPA, INVENTORY OF U.S. GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND SINKS: 1990-2018, at 7-17 tbl.7-6 (2020) (EPA 430-R-20-002).

25. Id.

26. Id. at 7-4.

27. EPA, Overview of Greenhouse Gases: Methane Emissions, https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overviewgreenhouse-gases (last updated Sept. 8, 2020).

28. Jon Powell et al., Letter, Estimates of Solid Waste Disposal Rates and Reduction Targets for Landfill Gas Emissions, 6 NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE 162, 162 (2016) (finding that the total amount of municipal waste disposed of in the United States was 115% higher than EPA’s estimate in 2012).

29. DANA GUNDERS, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL, WASTED: HOW AMERICA IS LOSING UP TO 40 PERCENT OF ITS FOOD FROM FARM TO FORK TO LANDFILL 14 (2012).

30. BUSINESS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, FOOD WASTE: TIER I ASSESSMENT 12 (2012).

31. Id.

32. See generally Council Directive 1999/31/EC, 1999 O.J. (L. 182).

33. PETER KRAUSE ET AL., UMWELT BUNDESAMT, COMPULSORY IMPLEMENTATION OF SEPARATE COLLECTION OF BIOWASTE 3-4 (2015).

34. Kreislaufwirtschaftsgesetz [Circular Economy Act], Feb. 24, 2012, BGBl. I S.212, art. 11.

35. Angelique Chrisafis, French Law Forbids Waste by Supermarkets, GUARDIAN, Feb. 4, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/04/french-law-forbids-food-waste-by-supermarkets. See Proposition de Loi 632 du 9 decembre 2015 relative à la lutte contre le gaspillage alimentaire [Proposal of Law 632 of December 9, 2015, on the fight against food waste], Assemblee Nationale [French National Assembly], Dec. 9, 2015.

36. News Release, EPA, EPA Issues Final Actions to Cut Methane Emissions From Municipal Solid Waste Landfills (July 15, 2016), https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-issues-finalactions-cut-methane-emissions-municipal-solid-waste-landfills-0_.html; Standards of Performance for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills, 81 Fed. Reg. 59332 (Aug. 29, 2016) (regulating new and modified landfills under the New Source Performance Standards program of the Clean Air Act); Emission Guidelines and Compliance Times for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills, 81 Fed. Reg. 59276 (Aug. 29, 2016) (regulating existing landfills under Clean Air Act §111(d)).

37. EPA, DOCUMENTATION FOR GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION AND ENERGY FACTORS USED IN THE WASTE REDUCTION MODEL (WARM)—ORGANIC MATERIALS chs. 1-29 to 1-30 (2016).

38. VT. STAT. ANN. tit. 10, §6602(29) (West 2017). California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts have also passed legislation or promulgated regulations requiring commercial businesses to divert food waste from landfills under certain circumstances. CAL. PUB. RES. CODE §42649.81 (West 2017) (applies to businesses generating eight cubic yards of organic waste or more per week); CONN. GEN. STAT. ANN. §22a-226e (West 2017) (limits entities to no more than 52 tons of organic waste by 2020); MASS. REGS. CODE tit. 310, §§19.006, 19.017(3) (2017) (bans entities from disposing of more than one ton of food waste per week).

39. N.Y. ENVTL. CONSERV. Law, §27-2203. See also N.Y. State Dep’t of Environmental Conservation, Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling Law Overview (2020), https://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/114499.html.

40. N.Y. League of Conservation Voters, Working to Solve New York’s Food Waste Problem (2018), https://nylcv.org/news/working-solve-new-yorks-food-waste-problem/; N.Y. State Methane Reduction Plan (2017), https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/administration_pdf/mrpfinal.pdf.

41. S.F., Cal., Ordinance 100-09 (June 9, 2009).

42. This includes yard waste in addition to food waste.

43. Sean Kennedy, In Seattle, Compost Your Food Scraps—Or Else, CNN, Oct. 3, 2014, http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/24/politics/seattle-composting-law/.

44. SEATTLE, WASH., MUN. CODE §§21.36.082(C), 21.36.083(B) (2016).

45. Sara Bernard, Why Seattle Still Has a Huge Garbage Problem, Grist, June 15, 2015, http://grist.org/cities/why-seattle-still-has-a-huge-garbage-problem/.

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