The role of U.S. policy in advancing circular economy solutions for wasted food
The role of U.S. policy in advancing circular economy solutions for wasted food
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DOI：
10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.133200
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发表时间：
2022-07
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Erinn G. Ryen;Callie W. Babbitt
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Erinn G. Ryen;Callie W. Babbitt
食物浪费是一个日益严峻的全球可持续发展挑战。美国在食物垃圾产生方面发挥着重要作用，但在大幅减少最终填埋的食物数量方面进展有限。循环经济为当前食品和食品浪费的线性管理提供了令人信服的替代方案，但美国还缺乏能够在食品系统中实现循环经济的全面公共政策。本文对美国联邦和州政策进行了系统分析，以确定当前的法规和举措是否有助于或阻碍循环食物垃圾管理。一项重要发现是，美国制定了雄心勃勃的国家目标和举措，旨在减少和回收浪费的食物，但这些努力都是自愿的，缺乏执行机制。各个州已经制定了一系列广泛的政策，预计将直接和间接影响浪费食物的产生和管理，包括对食品日期标签的高度可变的要求以及使用多余食物作为动物饲料。美国大多数州都制定了政策，支持捐赠多余的食物供人类使用，还有一些州实际上要求通过垃圾填埋禁令或转移目标来管理浪费的食物。然而，所观察到的国家政策“拼凑”所固有的异质性预计将混淆更广泛的循环经济目标，并可能限制新的商业模式和利益相关者的参与。因此，政策工作的高度优先事项包括日期标签的联邦标准化以及州救援和再分配政策的区域协调，以支持高效的业务实施和合规性。
Food waste is a growing global sustainability challenge. The United States plays a major role in food waste generation and yet has seen limited progress toward significantly reducing the amount of food ultimately being landfilled. Circular economy offers a compelling alternative to the current linear management of food and food waste, but the U.S. also lacks comprehensive public policy that would enable circular economy in the food system. This article provides a systemic analysis of U.S. federal and state policy to identify whether current regulations and initiatives are helping or hindering circular food waste management. One key finding is that the U.S. has ambitious national goals and initiatives aimed at reducing and recovering wasted food, but these efforts are voluntary and lack enforcement mechanisms. Individual states have enacted a wide array of policies expected to both directly and indirectly influence wasted food generation and management, including highly variable requirements for food date labeling and using excess food as animal feed. The majority of U.S. states have policies in place that would support donation of excess food for human use, and a few actually mandate wasted food management through landfill bans or diversion targets. However, the heterogeneity inherent to the observed “patchwork” of state policies is expected to confound broader circular economy goals and potentially limit new business models and stakeholder participation. Therefore, high priorities for policy efforts include federal standardization of date labeling and regional harmonization of state rescue and redistribution policies to support efficient business implementation and compliance.