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Topic AreaTopic OverviewZFWC Toolkit Link
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Organic Waste BansBills marked as “organic waste bans” are a category of laws and regulatory requirements that restrict the amount of organic waste or food waste that can be disposed of in landfills or incinerators and/or require that food waste generators divert organic waste. This bills are often introduced with a comprehensive suite of solutions and suggestions for how to divert organic waste - whether through up cycling, animal feed, anaerobic digestion, or composting. They often contain elements of edible food recovery, but for the purpose of this document are categorized under “organic waste bans”.Building
and Broadening Organic Waste Bans and Beyond
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Edible Food RecoveryUnder this tracker, food recovery policies are a category of laws and regulatory requirements that relate to bills that:

1. Mandate certain generators of surplus food to redirect safe food to people or other recovery pathways other than disposal. If a bill mandates this alongside in the same bill as an organic waste ban policy, the bill in this tracker is marked as an organic waste ban.
2. Promote food rescue and food donation to ensure that surplus food goes to people and not to landfills
3. Create a tax incentive to help financially support businesses that choose to donate food,
4. Enact liability protections to shield businesses who donate food food from potential lawsuits; and/ or:
5. Clarify food safety guidelines to ensure that food safety rules do not serve as a barrier to food donation and that businesses better understand what food safety rules apply to food donations.

This topic area is broad reaching and can involve grant development, but is not intended to capture all financing relating to edible food recovery.		Opportunities
to Promote Food Donation
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Organic Waste By-Product ProcurementTo better incentivize solution providers to develop capacity for organics processing, governments can utilize their purchasing power to develop end markets and support local facilities by requiring the government to procure organic waste by-products, such as:

1. Compost
2. Digestate that meets land applicability requirements
3. Mulch
4. Renewable Energy (Transportation fuel, electricity, and gas for heating) from anaerobic digestion)
5. Electricity from biomass conversion

Procurement policy is a powerful tool for aligning public spending with government policy objectives and promoting beneficial practices in private industry. Incorporating values-driven procurement principles into acquisition policy helps to ensure that public institutions spend taxpayer dollars in a manner that promotes the public interest. State government can mandate that state and local governments and their contractors procure organic waste by-products (with a preference for those produced within the state) for use in earth-disturbing activities such as landscaping, construction, roads, low-impact development, and green infrastructure projects.		Developing
End Markets for Compost
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Date LabelingDate labeling policies are focused on promoting policy to address food waste by standardizing the labels on their food products. A major driver of food waste is confusion over date labels. Food product manufacturers face an array of unstandardized labels on their food products, and many people throw away food once the date passes because they mistakenly think the date is an indicator of safety. However, for most foods, the date is a manufacturer’s best guess as to how long the product will be at its peak quality. When consumers misinterpret indicators of quality and freshness for indicators of a food’s safety, the amount of food that is unnecessarily wasted increases. Poor date labeling laws can also unnecessarily prevent food donation by prohibiting donation of safe, wholesome food because it is past-date. States can make date labels more comprehensible to consumers and avoid unnecessary waste by passing legislation that standardizes date labels on products sold within the state and clearly differentiates between safety and quality date labels.Preventing
Food Waste Upstream
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