Schools are sources of large amounts of waste, including food. On a single day this year in Rhode Island, schools across the state will produce somewhere around 27,000 pounds of food waste. By the time the final bell rings in June, and the last student steps on the bus, Rhode Island鈥檚 schools will have wasted roughly 5 million pounds of food 鈥� 776,700 of which is perfectly edible. It鈥檚 a massive resource gap. Instead of being diverted to compost piles or other organic digesters, the food waste produced by Ocean State schools is going directly to the rapidly filling Central Landfill in Johnston.
鈥淭he net effect of throwing food in the garbage is that we鈥檙e paying for it,鈥� Rep. Lauren Carson, D-Newport, said. 鈥淲e buy the food in the schools, we pay people to serve it, the kids don鈥檛 eat it, we throw it away, and we pay to get it taken to the landfill, which is running out of space. It鈥檚 a real cycle of poor management, and a tremendous loss of money.鈥�
It鈥檚 also against the law. In 2021, Carson was the main sponsor of a bill to require schools 鈥� so long as they were 15 miles from a composting facility or anaerobic digester 鈥� to divert their food scrap from the Johnston landfill. But the vast majority of Rhode Island鈥檚 305 public schools and 66 charter schools don鈥檛 comply with the law. Less than 5 miles west of the Statehouse is Rhode Island鈥檚 last and only remaining landfill, and the only waste management site in Rhode Island equipped to take in the serious amounts of waste Rhode Islanders generate every year.
Around 16% of everything that goes into the landfill could be diverted to compost piles or anaerobically digested, according to a 2015 study by the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC). Besides filling the landfill, buried food scrap also worsens the state鈥檚 greenhouse gas emissions problem. 鈥淎 pound of food waste rotting in the landfill will produce 3.6 pounds of methane,鈥� said Warren Heyman, organizing director for the Rhode Island School Recycling Project. 鈥淚f you push the supply chain back by one pound, you save 3.6 pounds of methane, because of all the emissions generated in growing the food, transporting it, processing it, and getting it to the school. The real action is pushing it back.鈥�