HB1799 – Diverting organic materials from landfills, increasing composting, and reducing food waste.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Fitzgibbon (D; 34th District; Vashon Island & Southwest Seattle.) (Co-Sponsor Representative Berry – D)
Current status – House concurred in Senate amendments March 8th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5731 is a companion bill in the Senate.
In the House – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment & Energy January 21st. Replaced by a substitute by the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 1st. Referred to Appropriations, had a hearing and passed out of committee on February 7th. (I don’t know if an amendment to make the bill null and void unless funding for it were appropriated passed or not – it’s labeled “Checked”.) Referred to Rules. Replaced by a striker from the prime sponsor making various adjustments which are summarized by staff at the end of it and passed by the House February 14th.
In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology February 17th. Replaced by a striker dropping the Good Samaritan pricing provision, removing extended producer responsibility programs for packaging and paper products from the waste management funding study, and making some other changes which are summarized by staff at the end of it. Passed out of committee February 23rd. Referred to Ways and Means; had a hearing there February 26th; and passed out of committee the 28th. Amended on the floor to prohibit expanding any existing organic materials management facility that processed more than 200,000 tons of material in 2019 (with the exception of anaerobic digesters); to exempt jurisdictions with between 25,000 and 50,000 people and without curbside organics collection from the organics collection service requirements, and to add a labeling requirement for nonfood contact film products. Passed by the Senate March 3rd.
Summary –
The substitute delays some local requirements by two years, drops the ban on non-compostable produce stickers, makes the compost reimbursement program permanent, and makes a lot of other small changes which are summarized by staff at the beginning of it.
Original bill –
The bill would add to the State’s current food waste reduction goals by establishing goals to reduce the disposal of organic materials in landfills by 75% from 2015 levels by 2030, and to recover at least 20% of the amount of edible food that was disposed of in 2015 for human consumption by 2025. It defines “organic materials management” to include vermiculture, black soldier fly, or similar technologies as well as composting and anaerobic digestion.
Jurisdictions would be required to provide organic solid waste collection services to all their residents and businesses that generate more than .5 cubic yard of organic materials; and provide for their organic management. (Jurisdictions disposing of less than 5,000 tons of solid waste or with populations under 25,000, census tracts with fewer than 75 people per square mile in unincorporated portions of a county,and areas receiving waivers for up to five years from the Department of Ecology on the basis of factors including the distance to organic management facilities, the facilities’ ability to manage additional organic materials, and current restrictions on their transport would be exempt. However, Ecology could apply the requirements to sparse census tracts and areas with waivers after January 2030 if it determined that the new goals had not or would not be achieved.) Counties’ and cities’ solid waste plans would be required to be consistent with the new goals, to identify the capacity for organic management needed to meet them, to consider other methods of managing organics in addition to composting and anaerobic digestion, and to identify priority areas for that in industrial zones in the jurisdiction (and not in overburdened areas). The bill would add composting and other organic materials management facilities to the list of local public works projects eligible for State loans, grants, financing guarantees, and technical assistance through the Public Works Board. By 2023, local governments would be required to adopt a compost procurement ordinance and a procurement plan to implement the State’s current requirements for using compost in projects, giving priority to purchasing compost products from companies that produce them locally, are certified by a nationally recognized organization, and produce compost from municipal solid waste, and meet quality standards comparable to those adopted by the Department of Transportation or Ecology.
Beginning January 1, 2024, the bill would require a business that generates at least eight cubic yards of organic waste per week that isn’t managed on site to arrange for organic materials management of that; beginning in 2025 the requirement would apply to businesses generating at least four cubic yards, and beginning in 2026, businesses that generate at least four cubic yards of any solid waste per week would have to arrange for organic management of their organic waste, unless the department determined that additional reductions in the landfilling of organic materials would be better achieved, at reasonable cost to businesses, by establishing a different threshold. Businesses could fulfill the requirements by:
(a) Source separating organic waste and subscribing to a service with organic waste collection and materials management;
(b) Managing its organic waste on-site or hauling its own organic waste for organic management; or
(c) Qualifying for exclusion from the requirements of this section consistent with subsection (1)(b) of this section.
Businesses’ contracts for gardening or landscaping service would have to require that the organic waste be managed organically. (The requirements wouldn’t apply in areas of a jurisdiction with no available businesses that collect and deliver organic materials to solid waste facilities that provide for the organic materials management of it and food waste, and would not apply at all in jurisdictions with no available capacity at the solid waste facilities to which businesses that collect and deliver organic materials could feasibly and economically deliver them.)
The bill would modify the current Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which reduces gleaners and food donors exposure to liability, by only requiring the “apparently fit grocery products” it covers to meet all safety and safety-related labeling standards; those would not include certain current required pull dates or a “best by,” “best if used by,” “use by,” “sell by,” or similarly phrased date intended to communicate information about the freshness or quality of a product to consumers. The bill would allow donors to be paid for the costs of handling, administering, and distributing donated food and grocery products, and would allow charging needy individuals that much for them.
The bill would create a Washington Center for Sustainable Food Management at the Department of Ecology to help coordinate statewide food waste reduction. It would be authorized to:
(a) Coordinate the implementation of the State’s food waste reduction plan;
(b) Draft plan updates and measure progress on actions and strategies, and toward the statewide goals established in the bill and that plan;
(c) Maintain a website with current food waste reduction information and guidance for food service establishments, consumers, food processors, hunger relief organizations, and other sources of food waste;
(d) Provide staff support to multistate food waste reduction initiatives in which the state is participating;
(e) Maintain the consistency of the plan and other food waste reduction activities with the work of the Conservation Commission’s food policy forum;
(f) Facilitate and coordinate public-private and nonprofit partnerships focused on food waste reduction;
(g) Collaborate with federal, state, and local government partners on food waste reduction initiatives;
(h) Develop and maintain maps or lists of locations of the food systems of Washington that identify food flows, where waste occurs, and opportunities to prevent food waste;
(i) Collect and maintain data on food waste and wasted food;
(j) Research and develop emerging organics and food waste reduction markets;
(k) Develop and maintain statewide food waste reduction and food waste contamination reduction campaigns, in consultation with other state agencies and other stakeholders, including the development of materials may inform food service operators about the protections from civil and criminal liability under federal law and under the Samaritan Donation Act when donating food; and develop guidance in support of distribution of promotional materials by local health officers as part of routine inspections, and State agencies; and,
(l) Distribute and monitor grants for food waste prevention, rescue, and recovery.
The Center would be required to research and adopt several model ordinances for optional use by counties and cities that provided mechanisms for commercial solid waste collection and disposal designed, in part, to establish disincentives for generating organic waste and for landfilling organic materials. Ecology would do a State Environmental Policy Act review of these, and actions by jurisdictions adopting them would not be subject to its requirements. The department would be authorized to establish a voluntary reporting protocol for reports by businesses that donate food and recipients, could encourage its use, and could also request information about the volumes, types, and timing of food managed by a facility, and the food it generated
The bill would make the purchase of compost spreading equipment or financial assistance to farmers to purchase that eligible for grants from the Sustainable Farms and Fields program, if it were for annual use for at least three years with significant volumes of compost from a composting site that wasn’t owned or operated by the farmer. If funds were appropriated for it, the Department of Agriculture would be required to create a three-year pilot program to reimburse farming operations for up to $10,000 a year or 50% of the costs of purchasing and using compost products that were not generated by them, including transportation, equipment, spreading, and labor costs. To be eligible an operation would have to complete an eligibility review to ensure that the proposed transport and application of compost products is consistent with the Department’s agricultural pest control rules, to verify that it would allow soil sampling to be conducted by upon request during the duration program as necessary to establish a baseline of soil quality and carbon storage and for subsequent evaluations to assist the department’s reporting, and release the State from any claims based on the use of the compost. The Department of Agriculture would have to report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature, including the amount of compost for which reimbursement was sought under the program; the qualitative or quantitative effects of the program on soil quality and carbon storage; and an evaluation of the benefits and costs to the state of continuing, expanding, or furthering the strategies it explored.
The bill would authorize the Department of Ecology to pursue false or misleading claims for plastic products claiming to be “compostable” or “biodegradable”, rather than the Attorney General. It would shift the definition of “Supplier” in the State’s Plastic Product Degradability law to make manufacturers (or importers into the State, if the State lacked authority over the manufacturers) responsible for compliance with it. It would require plastics labeled as compostable to use green, beige, or brown labeling, striping, or other design patterns that help differentiate them from noncompostable materials, prohibit the use of similar schemes on plastics and food service products that weren’t compostable, and would add beige to the acceptable colors in the current State rules about making it easy to identify compostable plastic film products. It would prohibit plastic produce stickers that were not biodegradable.
It would shift the State’s share of the responsibility for enforcing the Plastic Product Degradability law from the Attorney General to Ecology, specify that it’s enforcement must be based primarily on complaints filed with the Department and cities and counties, require the Department to create ways to file complaints, and require it, cities and counties to provide education and outreach activities to inform retail establishments, consumers, and suppliers about the requirements of the law.