USCC Weighs in on Two Federal Initiatives

The USCC filed comments for the Biden Administration's Draft National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and is developing comments on the Environmental Protection Agency's Waste Reduction Model (WARM) v.16 after successfully requesting an extension of the comments deadline to March 9, 2024.

Food Loss and Waste Strategy

Several years ago, the EPA, USDA, and other organizations (including ours!) signed on to a goal of reducing food scraps disposal by 50% by 2030. The draft strategy is the response of those federal organizations on how to reach that goal.

Our focus in our comments were on the following:

• To re-educate federal agencies about the importance of compost and composting as a solution
• To fund research gaps identified in recent EPA reports
• To fund grants to private sector as well as in government sector and to all sizes of composting
• To put a bigger focus on carbon sequestration and water savings benefits of compost

USCC COMMENTS

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1F8e8hIGjnsZQD9GoOsoPHNkvZeQfIUjr

WARM (Waste Reduction Model) v.16

The WARM model is used heavily by players in the waste field to compare the greenhouse gas impact of waste and resource management practices. Composters use it to measure their impact with diversion of organics from disposal on behalf of their clients (generators, haulers, and ultimately citizens); communities use WARM to choose waste and materials management methods to align with climate goals. See WARM v.16 explanation here: https://www.epa.gov/warm

For that reason, it's very important that composting and the benefits of compost are measured fairly and accurately. USCC, researchers, scientists, consultants, composters, and other allies have ideas for how to do that; USCC could not gather timely input due to COMPOST2024 and requested a lengthening of the February 9 deadline—which was granted for March 9. Watch for USCC’s gathering of comments that we will post in the Compost Action Center by February 23, 2024 for advocates to forward on as comments!