Oregon bill would require composting of food waste statewide and clear food labeling

Oregon lawmakers are considering HB 3018, which would require thousands of Oregon businesses - from hospitals to restaurants to food producers - to compost their food waste.

Nationwide, an estimated 15% of methane gas pollution is created by food and other organic waste decomposing in landfills. The bill would also try to reduce the amount of food being tossed out in the first place by requiring packaging to be more clear about when a product is safe to eat. The state’s Department of Environmental Quality has estimated that 70% of the food thrown away could be safely eaten.

We get two perspectives on the proposals: Charlie Fisher is the state director of Oregon State Public Interest Research Group and helped write the bill. Jason Brandt is the president and CEO of the Oregon Restaurant And Lodging Association and has concerns about the bill.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Nationwide, an estimated 15% of methane gas pollution is created by food and other organic waste decomposing in landfills. Oregon lawmakers right now are considering a bill intended to reduce that waste. House Bill 3018 would require thousands of Oregon businesses, from hospitals to restaurants to food producers, to compost their food waste instead of throwing it away. The bill would also try to reduce the amount of food being tossed out in the first place by requiring packaging be more clear about when a product is safe to eat.

Charlie Fisher is a state director of OSPIRG, the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group. He helped write this bill. Jason Brandt is the president and CEO of the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association, which opposes it. They both join us now. It’s great to have both of you on Think Out Loud.

Charlie Fisher: Thanks for having us.

Jason Brandt: Thanks for having us.

Miller: Charlie, first – what’s the problem that this bill aims to address?

Fisher: Simply, the problem is food waste in Oregon. We waste a lot of food in the state. It’s estimated that about 800,000 tons of food go uneaten in Oregon each year. And to give you kind of a visual representation of what that means, if you were to line up garbage trucks end-to-end from the southern border to the northern border of Oregon, you’d be able to fill them up twice with the amount of uneaten food in Oregon each year. Much of that food is ending up in the landfill. Food is actually the largest single component of solid waste in landfills.

So given the amount of energy, time and resources associated with growing that food, producing it and distributing it, it’s kind of crazy that we’re just throwing it out instead of putting it to more productive purposes. Ideally, we’d like more of it to be consumed. If we can’t do that, at least send it to be composted where it has lots of benefits, especially compared to just throwing in the landfill.

Miller: Jason, before we get to the specifics of this bill, which we will in just a second, is your industry in agreement that too much food waste goes to landfills? Is this a problem that you would like some kind of solution to?

Brandt: Absolutely, I think Charlie stated it very well. Our industry, I think similar to others that contribute to the challenges posed by food waste, would agree that this is an initiative that’s worth devoting time and resources towards. We’ve actually been a partner in the past with Metro in the Portland region to work through all the challenges caused by food waste, and trying to figure out systems and logistics for appropriately disposing of food waste in a way where it’s not that primary contributor to landfills. A whole campaign that was called “Food Waste Stops With Me” was something that we were partners with Metro on for years.

We have agreement on the premise and on the importance of addressing this. And I would say nationally, the restaurant industry does have ambitions for a zero food waste future. We see ourselves as an important component of a broader movement, if you will, of all folks – residential, restaurants, hospitals, as was mentioned earlier – all the different folks that contribute to this challenge rallying together to make sure that we have the infrastructure in place to address this problem. And I think that’s where Charlie and I may have disagreements, or the Association and OSPIRG.

Miller: So let’s turn there, because we’ve established there is some agreement, which there isn’t always even agreement about, whether or not there’s a problem that people on different sides say should be addressed. In this case, between the two of your groups there is. But then the devil is in the details.

Charlie, about two weeks ago, the bill passed out of committee with an amendment. So can you give us a sense for, right now, what the current iteration of this bill would actually do?

Fisher: Sure. It does two things. So first is it standardizes date labeling on food. About 10% of food is wasted because of simply confusion from consumers – the “freshest by,” “freeze by,” those kinds of things that don’t really have any standardized meaning. So the first thing the bill does is it just creates a standard date label where food, to the extent that producers want to put a date on it that’s public facing, either it has a “best by” date, which is an indication of quality, or a “use by” date, which is an indication of safety.

Miller: As opposed to “sell by” or “freeze by,” things that can be a little bit more confusing?

Fisher: Exactly. And it’s kind of interesting talking to people about this issue. It always seems like there’s one person in a household who is very rigorous about adhering to those dates and one that isn’t.

Miller: And some people, I think I’m in the more “smell it, and if it smells fine or if there’s no nothing blue on it (bread, say), then it’s probably fine.” You’re saying, in every household there’s somebody who’s a little bit more persnickety about dates?

Fisher: Yeah, having conversations with lawmakers or really anyone, it seems like that’s the case.

Miller: Before we get to the composting mandate, Jason, does your association – the restaurants, hotels and others – have an issue with this labeling change?

Brandt: No, the labeling change is not something we’re gonna stoke up issues with. And speaking to that, I would say my wife is the one, similar to you guys, that is willing to smell the product. I’m the rule follower in the family.

Miller: Even though there’s agreement here, I’m curious … Even though you’re following the rules, as you say, if the words change and instead of saying “sell by,” if it said “best by,” would that change any of your behavior?

Brandt: It’s a good question. I guess I’d have to see it play out. And yeah, I say a rule follower kind of facetiously, because obviously it’s a perceived rule that you make up in your mind, to Charlie’s point. I don’t know, maybe. I might be willing to smell a product just in my own personal life if it said “best by” instead of “use by.” I can see that changing some behaviors.

Miller: Charlie, is the idea that it’s not just the words that are changing, but that producers would be adding a couple days to a package of English muffins, that it might say “February 25” for “sell by,” but for “best by” or “eat by,” it might say March 1? Otherwise, this would only make a difference if food would have a later date.

Fisher: Well, I think that the confusion comes from the terms that don’t really have a lot of meaning, like “sell by.” From a consumer, whether it needs to be sold by a certain date doesn’t really mean anything to me. But if that’s the only date that is on a product, then, I might just see the date and it’s today or yesterday and think, “well, it’s not safe for me to eat.” But if it says “use by,” and then presumably that would be a week later from the “sell by” date, then that would actually be an indication that if I eat it past this date, I may get sick.

What the bill does is it gets rid of the confusing labels and only allows the ones that actually have kind of standardized meaning.

Miller: OK. But even here, we still have I think less pushback from different industries than than the mandate for food composting. So who would be subject to this and what would they have to do?

Fisher: So it goes into effect in phases. But when fully implemented, businesses that generate over 500 pounds of food waste per week – so that’s the equivalent of about two yard waste sized bins each week – would be required to separate out the food scraps that they generate in the back of house. This isn’t expecting that consumers or the customers are going to do it themselves, it’s just the employees of the business.

Miller: And I understand there’s actually a carve out, that if people are bussing their own tables – which is so common in so many restaurants these days – that trash is often commingled, that could still go into a landfill. It’s what happens in the kitchen that the government would say you have to separate?

Fisher: Correct, yeah.

Miller: But in the kitchen, when there’s leftover stuff that hasn’t been eaten, that would have to go into a separate container, and then the restaurant, say, would have to pay to have that be picked up and taken to a composting facility, just the way they’re paying to have their garbage picked up?

Fisher: Right yeah, they’d have to arrange to have the food picked up and sent to be composted.

Miller: What would happen now in places where a composting facility is not that close – 75 miles away or further?

Fisher: This is one of the things that we put into the amendment based on feedback that we got from a variety of folks that are interested in this. If a business doesn’t have a composting facility within 75 miles, then they would be essentially exempt from the requirement.

Miller: Exempt or just delayed? I thought that they would have another four years or so before this kicks in.

Fisher: In 2030, when the initial policy goes into effect, they would not be covered. And then in 2032 with the idea that composting infrastructure will be built out, then yes, they would then be required to participate.

Miller: Jason, what’s wrong with what Charlie just outlined?

Brandt: Well having the pilot project in the Portland metro region has just proven to us that there’s, when it comes to infrastructure build out, there’s always fits and starts. So our primary concern with the journey that we all want to enter into together to reduce food waste is simply an infrastructure issue for us. When we look at our rural versus urban restaurants and the proximity of composting facilities to various restaurants – we have over 10,000 restaurants in Oregon – we have some concerns that the infrastructure in place, even for larger contributors to the food waste challenges we face, would be asked to do things, and spend time, money and resources to separate out food waste that is not being picked up at an efficient time interval. And then the issues that we have relating to the capacity to actually adequately dispose of that food waste as well.

So for us, we’ve had other examples in the past where we get ahead of ourselves somewhat in trying to pass legislation that isn’t practical based on the status of the infrastructure and the makeup of that infrastructure statewide.

Miller: Does the two-year push for more rural areas assuage your concerns? Because as you just heard from Charlie, the basic idea is in that time – we’re really talking about seven years from now before it would really go into effect – the market would say, “this is coming,” so the infrastructure would be built in response to this future mandate. Do you not buy that?

Brandt: I mean, it’s part of the equation. I would hope that if legislation were to pass, the infrastructure would soon follow to make this whole process efficient for the folks that are being asked to separate out food waste. Certainly, we have unintended consequences that would occur. If the food waste isn’t being picked up on a regular schedule and if the folks picking up the food waste don’t have a place to take the food waste from a capacity standpoint – both concerns we heard, of course in the first public hearing on the issue.

So yeah, some of our concerns would be addressed if we could see a journey towards infrastructure that’s adequately in place, that then I think requires or would allow us to take the steps necessary to contribute to that system. But I think the infrastructure and the system have to be foolproof. They have to be in place first before we’re asking those that contribute to the food waste issues to spend time, money and resources to adequately separate it out from the rest of their trash.

Miller: Charlie, what’s your response?

Fisher: Infrastructure is absolutely a valid concern and I think that’s one that we really took into account when we were hearing from folks. So I’ll just say, we spent a lot of time hearing and taking really serious input from the actual composting facilities that are going to be taking in this material. The haulers, the companies that are actually going to transport it, that was their initial concern – this is too soon, the infrastructure is not going to be there. So that’s why we pushed out the date.

Miller: But how many places right now would be set up to do this? Or maybe the better way to think about this, given the way the amendment is written, is how many communities are further than 75 miles away from a site that would work right now?

Fisher: I don’t think we have the specifics of every single community. In the testimony on the bill, the Department of Environmental Quality put together a map that basically says this is the current state of affairs and then this is what their vision is for when the bill is implemented. It’s the more rural areas obviously that are going to be the ones that are in that outside of that 75-mile radius.

I will say DEQ has grant money available that they are already planning on using to build out the infrastructure for composting. And then I should also say, as a result of these amendments, Recology – which some may be familiar, one of the larger composting facilities or composting companies – initially had some questions and ended up supporting the bill. So at least from our perspective, we feel pretty confident that we’ve addressed those concerns from the perspective of the companies that are actually gonna have to take in and transport the materials, and that there’s enough time and there’s a plan to get there. The concerns that Jason is raising I think will be resolved far before this is a problem.

Miller: Jason, to go back to the big picture – you were saying you have concerns about the infrastructure, just the physical ability for this to work in the coming years. What kind of effort to reduce food waste would you support?

Brandt: We already have a track record of supporting food waste disposal in a more responsible way in Portland metro, our most populous region of the state. We’ve already done a lot of proactive work ...

Miller: That’s because of a mandate from Metro. You’re doing this, but this is required by the Metro regional government.

Brandt: Yeah, that’s correct. But in fairness to Metro, they reached out to us in advance of that policy and we worked with them as that policy was getting approved. And then of course, we were a partner with them on the campaign “Food Waste Stops With Me” for multiple years. So I think that history proves that the industry, both at a national level and at a state level, do have ambitions for a zero food waste future.

So Charlie and I, as Oregonians that love this state and want to be prudent environmental stewards of the state, have responsibilities to figure out ways where we can partner. If the legislation was simply focused on the timeline and roll out period for composting facilities and haulers to meet certain benchmarks to add this capacity, I think we would have less concern. It’s creating a mandate in writing, requiring certain restaurants to abide by those rules before we actually have the capacity in places where it becomes problematic for us.

Because we actually saw this play out in Portland metro. We had goals, we had aspirations for when the timetables would play out. But as I mentioned earlier, there were fits and starts, and we had situations where restaurants were separating out their food waste and it wasn’t being collected on a specific schedule. And that of course creates other issues: rodents, other social service issues relating to food waste that is being kept out too long, sanitary issues as well. So we’re trying to avoid the unintended consequences by really squarely focusing on the importance of expanding the capacity and the infrastructure for the system.

We have not even spoken yet about the costs of this too though. I do have some concerns for our rural members compared to urban members, those main street mom and pop businesses in some of our most iconic towns across Oregon. What does it look like when it comes to the passthrough cost for them?

Miller: Jason Brandt and Charlie Fisher, thanks very much.

Fisher: Thanks for having us.

Brandt: Thanks so much, Dave. We really appreciate it.

Miller: Jason Brandt is the president and CEO of the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association. Charlie Fisher is the state director of Oregon State Public Interest Research Group, OSPIRG.

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