2025 Year-End: State Food Waste Legislative Trends—and a Closer Look at New Jersey

Focusing on reducing food loss and waste, ReFED and the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic are actively monitoring legislative developments in this area. Their biannual updates to the Food Waste Policy Finder provide an overview of both state and federal policy activity while spotlighting future food waste reduction strategies. Advocates seeking additional current legislative tracking across state legislatures can consult the 2026 Food Waste Legislative Tracker, developed by Divert in partnership with the Zero Food Waste Coalition and the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic.

Since the 2025 midyear update, state food waste policy activity has continued, largely in the form of incremental developments rather than sweeping new legislative initiatives. Earlier momentum around organic waste diversion and date labeling remains an important backdrop, but the second half of the year was defined more by implementation questions and refining of existing frameworks.

This update takes a brief look at the overall legislative landscape at the close of 2025, then turns to a closer examination of New Jersey’s recent legislative activity. The state’s efforts are notable because they sit at the intersection of strengthening an existing organic waste regime and altering how food waste reduction is defined and measured in practice.

2025 State Food Waste Legislation: Year-End Update

As of December 31, 2025, 36 states had introduced 110 unique food-waste related bills, with 24 enacted. Of the remaining bills, 83 were pending at the end of the year, and two failed. New York led all states with 12 introduced bills, followed by Massachusetts with 10. Legislative activity was up compared to 2024, as 10 more bills were introduced compared to the close of 2024.

Funding remained the most prominent focus in state food waste legislation. Since our earlier update, the number of introduced bills in that category has risen to 22. Other recurring themes remain largely consistent. States continued to explore tax incentives for food donation (16 bills), general food waste reduction strategies (15 bills), date labeling reforms (10 bills), and school-focused food waste policies (8 bills).

Of the 24 bills enacted, funding again leads with six, followed by waste bans (4) and schools (3). Notably, some of the most active categories by introduction have seen limited enactment. Despite 16 introduced bills on tax incentives for food donation, only 2 were enacted, and those made technical changes to and added a sunset date for Nebraska’s tax credit for food donations. Of the 10 date labeling bills introduced, only Colorado’s bill was converted into law. Waste reduction, the second most introduced category with 15 bills, also saw only a single bill enacted in Maryland. This category encompasses laws encouraging food waste reduction that don’t fit elsewhere, including those that set waste diversion goals without implementing a waste ban. This suggests that while legislatures are broadly interested in food waste, ongoing advocacy is needed to ensure that strong food waste bills actually cross the finish line.

New Jersey’s A2090: Next Steps on Food Waste

New Jersey’s A2090 was signed into law on January 12, 2026, and requires the state’s solid waste management districts and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to take specific actions to reduce the amount of food waste disposed of in landfills. The law requires each solid waste management district to develop and implement a strategy to reduce the amount of food waste generated annually in the district by at least 50 percent of 2022 levels by 2035. These strategies must then be incorporated into district solid waste management plans and approved by DEP.

The bill explicitly recognizes several pathways toward that reduction goal. Increases in donations of surplus edible food, composting, and anaerobic digestion all count toward meeting the state’s food waste reduction goal. The legislation also introduces a tiered regulatory structure for composting facilities under the Solid Waste Management Act, which could help tailor regulatory requirements to different scales of organic waste recycling infrastructure and thus remove regulatory hurdles impeding new composting infrastructure, leading to an increase in facilities. Unlike states that are still considering whether to adopt organic waste diversion requirements, New Jersey already has an organic waste ban in place. This regulatory structure could increase the number of large food waste generators covered by the state’s source separation and diversion requirements by increasing access to food waste recycling facilities within 25 miles.

At the same time, a late amendment to the bill created a carveout for food waste sent to landfills that capture methane gas. Specifically, this means food waste sent for disposal to a landfill facility that captures landfill gas and delivers it to a gas-to-energy facility, or converts it to renewable natural gas meeting pipeline or transportation fuel standards, is exempt from the food waste reduction requirements in the new law.

From a policy perspective, this carveout does not align with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Wasted Food Scale, which prioritizes prevention, donation, and organic recycling options such as composting or anaerobic digestion because they deliver the greatest environmental and circular economy benefits. Methane capture can reduce some emissions, but it does not fully address the environmental impacts associated with wasting food and landfilling organics, and it may reduce incentives to invest in higher-value diversion infrastructure. For these reasons, landfilling food waste should be avoided where possible, with or without energy recovery, in line with the EPA Wasted Food Scale.

Although DEP has not yet published its recommended strategies for solid waste districts, some counties have already begun developing their plans. Morris County’s Municipal Utilities Authority (MCMUA) began developing its food waste reduction strategy after A2090 was introduced. The MCMUA has focused its efforts on food recovery and donation, including conducting a food rescue assessment to support redistributing surplus food and launching a food waste business challenge to engage local restaurants and food generators. This approach, which prioritizes prevention and donation, aligns with the upper tiers of the EPA Wasted Food Scale.

At the state level, DEP is similarly utilizing the Wasted Food Scale as a guide. New Jersey’s recently released Climate Action Plan references the EPA Wasted Food Scale as a framework for identifying the measures that deliver the greatest environmental benefit, suggesting that when DEP publishes its list of recommended strategies for solid waste districts, those strategies will prioritize prevention, donation, and organic recycling over landfill disposal.

Taken together, A2090 highlights the continued need to educate policymakers on the most effective pathways to reduce the environmental impacts of wasted food. As counties and the state develop their strategies under the new law, that education will be critical to ensuring the approaches they adopt maximize environmental and circular economy benefits. Advocates should also closely track late-stage amendments, such as the recent changes in New Jersey, which can meaningfully alter how these policies operate in practice.