Recipient Organization
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
ITHACA,NY 14853
Performing Department
Development Sociology
Non Technical Summary
In spring 2019, NYS passed the Food Donation and Food Scrap Recycling Act, a landmark food waste diversion bill that requires large-volume generators of food waste to donate edible food and recycle food scraps. The Act recognizes food as a valuable resource and responds to an urgent need to divert it from landfills. In NYS, food makes up 18.5% of municipal solid waste streams. Most discarded food is buried in landfills, where it produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as it breaks down. By some estimates, food waste is responsible for more than 20% of methane emissions in the US.The Act requires that entities producing more than 2 tons of food waste per week donate edible food to pantries and recycle inedible food scraps following the EPA's Food Recovery Hierarchy. The Hierarchy prioritizes feeding food scraps to animals over converting them into energy via digesters or using them to produce compost because the conversion into food for animals makes better use of the energy embedded in discarded food. Yet, this top-ranked recycling strategy has received little attention, and a negligible proportion of the state's food waste is used in this way.This project seeks to understand the possibilities, constraints, and best practices related to scaling up the use of food scraps to feed animals. The project is timely given that the Act will take effect on January 1, 2022 and make tons of food scraps available for recycling. It is in the interest of all NYS residents to make the best possible use of these resources while ensuring the health and welfare of people and animals.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
1. To identify, within the framework of existing state garbage feeding laws and laws governing animal feed production, the incentives and disincentives for large-scale generators of food waste to divert food scraps for the purpose of feeding animals in 3 New York State (NYS) counties with different recycling resources and infrastructures;2. To assess the benefits and constraints associated with using food scraps for animal feed from the perspective of farmers with operations of different types and sizes;3. To analyze the capacity within the state for industrial conversion of food waste into animal feed, and the opportunities to increase the volume of food scraps processed in such facilities; and4. To collect best practices related to this recycling strategy from key informants in states with similar legislation in effect, especially Vermont and Massachusetts, neighboring states where bans on landfilling food waste extend all the way down to small-volume generators and even to households.
Project Methods
This is a qualitative interview study.1. Interviews will be conducted with key informants at entities identified as food waste generators under the Act. We will select the sample using the Organic Resource Locator assembled by the NYS Pollution Prevention Institute (NYSP2I). The tool identifies and maps different types of generators, including restaurants, supermarkets, food processors (bakeries, breweries, wineries), and institutions, such as universities and correctional facilities (hospitals, nursing homes, and K-12 institutions are exempt from the Act) and the amount of food waste each generates weekly. We will interview ~20 generators in each of 3 counties that vary in recycling resources (also mapped by the NYSP2I), since the density of these resources is likely to shape recycling practices: Tompkins (rich in recycling resources), Allegany (poor), and Oswego (average). We will ask about pre- and post-consumer waste, the logistics of food scrap recycling, health, safety and reputational concerns (contamination, compliance, liability), and open-ended questions to allow generators to contribute other dimensions to the question.2. Interviews will be conducted with farmers about opportunities and constraints related to using food scraps. One focus will be farmers who currently use food scraps as a portion of feed. We will begin with the handful of NYS farmers who have filed Beneficial Use Determination (BUD) applications to convert food waste into animal feed. These facilities are captured by the NYSP2I. We will also interview at least 10-15 farmers in each target county who use spent grains, breads and food products that do not require a BUD. Initial samples will be identified through personal contacts and CCE staff; snowball sampling will be used to find additional farmers who use food scraps and farmers who once used scraps but no longer do, since they are uniquely suited to pinpoint challenges and constraints. We will ask open-ended questions as well as questions about animal health and nutrition, guaranteed feed analysis, supply, cost, transportation, infrastructure, labor, contamination and sourcing.3. Interviews will be conducted with operators of facilities that recuperate food waste to transform it into animal feed. This includes the (< one dozen) non-farm based entities with a BUD for food waste across the state (for example, Full Circle Feed, which makes dog treats from restaurant waste in Syracuse), and operators of heat treating facilities. We will ask about absorptive capacity and plans for expansion in light of the new legislation.4. Finally, we will conduct interviews with public officials and collect relevant documents from agencies in Vermont and Massachusetts where bans on landfilling food waste are already in effect to learn about best practices for converting food waste into animal food.Interviews will be recorded with the permission of the interviewee, transcribed, and analyzed thematically.