COMPOSTING AND THE GROCERY INDUSTRY

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as well as wastes from grocery products after
they have been sold and used by consumers. Much of this waste is organic
in nature and landfilled.

From a product stewardship perspective the grocery industry believes that
composting is a more environmentally sound management practice than
disposal for managing these wastes. While single stream and segregated
stream composting may be more readily available for many manufacturers'
and retailers' own waste, MSW composting is an attractive alternative for
waste created by consumers.

This report focuses on grocery retailer composting programs, but will also
address goals and programs for manufacturers. Food waste plus wet and
waxed corrugated from retailers alone accounts for 6.6 million tons per
year of waste that could be composted rather than discarded, which is
nearly 4 percent of all municipal solid waste (MSW). Disposal of those
wastes costs the grocery retailers $482 million per year, eating up the
pre-tax profits from $34 ...

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the solid waste stream.
Regardless of the approach, it is important for the industry to help
establish a composting infrastructure. Market development is a key
element of this infrastructure and the grocery industry supports market
development initiatives.

Depending upon the compost program, compost processors may require or
prefer source-separated homogeneous food wastes to obtain maximum control
over end-product quality. Source-separated materials may have greater
value to the end user because of the densification and readiness for
processing, and therefore may lead to lowest collection and processing
costs for the generator.

For grocery retailers, this report focuses on segregated ...

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