Booker, Brownley, Pingree Reintroduce Legislation to Tackle Food Waste in America

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, reintroduced theZero Food Waste Act, legislation that would reduce the amount of food wasted in the United States. U.S. Representatives Julia Brownley (D-CA-26) and Chellie Pingree (D-ME-01) reintroduced companion legislation in the House.
In the United States, up to 40 percent of all food is wasted. Billions of dollars are spent growing, processing, transporting, storing, and disposing of food that is never consumed. Landfills are now the third-largest source of methane in the U.S., and food is the single largest input by weight in our landfills and incinerators.
TheZero Food Waste Actwould create a new Environmental Protection Agency-administered grant program for food waste reduction projects, including measuring food waste, identifying the most effective strategies to mitigate it, and implementing interventions that wouldprevent food from being wasted,such as repurposing inedible food intonon-food products, or finding consumers for foods that would otherwise not be eaten.
“On top of already strained grocery budgets, food waste costs each American consumer around $700 per year. Nearly 40 million tons of food go to waste each year, which is a costly misuse of the significant resources that go into growing, transporting, buying, and preparing food,said Senator Booker.“TheZero Food Waste Actwill create grants to make sure foods that otherwise would’ve needlessly gone to the landfill get eaten, upcycled into other products, or composted instead. We can keep more money in Americans’ pockets, simply by making sure the food we grow gets eaten or put to good use.”
“Families are stretching every dollar right now, yet enormous amounts of perfectly good food are still being thrown away instead of reaching people who need it. The Zero Food Waste Act aims to fix that disconnect. Our bill tackles hunger and rising food costs head-on by helping communities recover surplus food, expand local nutrition programs, and build systems that make better use of the resources we already have,”said Congresswoman Pingree, co-founder of the Bipartisan Food Recovery Caucus.“Reducing waste also means cutting methane emissions from landfills and easing the environmental burden of producing food that never gets eaten. Our bill will strengthen local economies by creating jobs in food recovery, composting, and waste-reduction infrastructure and ultimately move us closer to meeting our national food waste reduction goals.”
“It is unacceptable that as food insecurity grows across our country, nearly half of all food produced in the U.S. goes to waste, costing consumers billions of dollars and fueling the climate crisis. This level of waste is especially troubling when so many families are struggling to put food on the table, and when food production and food waste are major drivers of greenhouse gas emissions. We can and must confront these two critical, interconnected challenges, and we must do so with urgency,"said Congresswoman Julia Brownley."The Zero Food Waste Act will give local governments the tools they need to cut waste and build more sustainable, resilient food systems that better support families and strengthen our communities. I am also grateful to Senator Booker and Congresswoman Pingree for their partnership as we work to curb food waste, support those in need, and protect our environment for generations to come.”
To read the full text of the bill, clickhere.