Recently at ThomasNet Green & Clean, I wrote about programs that are starting up around North America to recycle food scraps from homes, institutions, and businesses — see “Not Your Grandma’s Compost Pile – Increasing Efforts to Recycle Food Scraps.”

This movement could have a significant impact on the waste stream, as I discovered from EPA data:

Government has begun to recognize that much of its waste stream is material that could be disposed of beneficially rather than simply being sequestered in a landfill emitting methane. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) … estimates that food scraps make up 14.1 percent of solid waste generated in the U.S., 34 million tons of food waste total. However, only 2.5 percent of that volume gets recovered.

AB — 28 August 2011