New Jersey lawmakers hear wide-ranging proposals to curb food waste, push county planning bill

Trenton, N.J. — Lawmakers and nonprofit, industry and university witnesses told a joint New Jersey Senate and Assembly environment committee on April 22 that the state must rapidly expand food-waste recovery systems to meet diversion targets and cut greenhouse-gas emissions.

"It is estimated that 40% of all food, globally, is wasted," said Serpell Yuron, director of Rutgers EcoComplex Clean Energy Innovation Center, urging source-separated collection and stronger recycling infrastructure. Yuron said municipal solid-waste totals for 2020 imply roughly 1,300,000 tons of food waste in the state’s waste stream and described composting and anaerobic digestion as pathways to recover nutrients and avoid methane leakage from landfills.

The hearing, held as an Earth Day event, brought a series of proposals and real-world examples. Sarah Elnakib, chair of Family and Community Health Sciences at Rutgers Cooperative Extension, recommended using the new K–12 climate-education requirement to teach food-waste…