Don’t Throw It, Grow It!

HRRA, in partnership with Circular Services, has launched the “Don’t Throw It, Grow It!” campaign, aimed at providing outreach, technical assistance, and training to businesses and institutions with significant amounts of food waste. Through this program, HRRA’s goals are to help businesses and institutions reduce food waste before it is created, separate organic material from other waste streams, recover or donate food when possible, and find partners to process food scraps through composting and anaerobic digestion.

Food waste accounts for an estimated 22% of CT’s waste stream, amounting to more than one billion pounds per year, according to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). Most of this organic material is incinerated or landfilled at rising economic and environmental costs. CT lawmakers strengthened The Commercial Organics Recycling Law (see CORL below) in 2023 to address this growing challenge, expanding the number of businesses and institutions subject to food scrap separation and composting requirements. While this legislation is an improvement and has gained the attention of some businesses, the state of CT is still lagging on recycling goals, demonstrating that more must be done.

Commercial Organics

The Commercial Organics Recycling Law (CGS 22a-226e) is intended to reduce waste and promote the development of source-separated organic material (SSOM) diversion and processing infrastructure in Connecticut by requiring large commercial generators to reduce the generation of wasted food through efficiency improvements, donating surplus food or collecting and diverting food waste from the waste stream to composting, anaerobic digestion, or other organics processing facilities. The law is intended to reduce and divert the approximately 233,000 tons of annual food waste currently generated and disposed of by the commercial sector.