Will New State Laws Stop Food Waste?

Americans waste food at a staggering rate; from the farmers who harvest it, to individual households who buy too many groceries. We are all wasting food at an unthinkable rate. We all waste food for some reason that we don’t give much thought to. Will the new laws make any difference?

38 million tons of food ends up in landfills each year. Many states such as California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont have created laws to restrict the amount of food that can be dumped in a landfill per year. Other states, such as Maryland, New Jersey and New York are considering implementing similar laws.  

In order to start the process of cutting back on food waste, we have set a goal, “In 2015, the EPA and U.S. Department of Agriculture set a national goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030.” If we can continue to cut down on food waste, we may actually be able to attain this goal.

We are slowly seeing change in the amount of food that is wasted, but are we getting this done fast enough to meet the goal of cutting food waste in half by the year 2030?

Finally, cutting our food waste in half by the year 2030 is a large change. That means that we need to cut down on food waste from 38 million tons to 19 million tons. That is a tremendous change, but 19 million tons of food waste is still too large for us to stop fighting the battle, or simply stop making changes because we have made our goal. In the year 2030, we hope we are fighting this battle with just as much force as now because by that time we will still have a lot to accomplish.