Two New Ideas To Combat Food Waste – Are They Any Good?

I love stumbling over new policy ideas and strategies that try to tackle problems rather than just drawing attention to the bad. In that vein, in the last two days I found two new projects that want to reduce food waste – here they are!

1. Seattle fines food wasters

First, and extremely surprising for me, the Seattle city council voted to distribute fines for residents and businesses that do not separate their food waste from the normal trash. Seattle is actually the second US city after San Francisco that thus makes composting mandatory in order to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions attached to the food system. The city currently recycles around 56% of its waste, but aims even higher.

What perplexed me most is how a project is actually implemented. According to the plan, the city’s waste collectors will have to monitor whether there is more than 10% food waste…