Of the first five US states with food waste bans, Massachusetts alone has reduced landfill waste-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Of the first five US states with food waste bans, Massachusetts alone has reduced landfill waste

Published:2024-09-13 Issue:6714 Volume:385 Page:1236-1240
ISSN:0036-8075
Container-title:Science
language:en
Short-container-title:Science

Author:

Anglou Fiorentia Zoi¹^ORCID,Sanders Robert Evan²^ORCID,Stamatopoulos Ioannis¹

Affiliation:

1. McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78705, USA.

2. Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.

Abstract

Diverting food waste from landfills is crucial to reduce emissions and meet Paris Agreement targets. Between 2014 and 2024, nine US states banned commercial waste generators—such as grocery chains—from landfilling food waste, expecting a 10 to 15% waste reduction. However, no evaluation of these bans exists. We compile a comprehensive waste dataset covering 36 US states between 1996 and 2019 to evaluate the first five implemented state-level bans. Contrary to policy-makers’ expectations, we can reject aggregate waste reductions higher than 3.2%, and we cannot reject a zero-null aggregate effect. Moreover, we cannot reject a zero-null effect for any other state except Massachusetts, which gradually achieved a 13.2% reduction. Our findings reveal the need to reassess food waste bans using Massachusetts as a benchmark for success.

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Link

https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.adn4216

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