In June, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) published an economic impact analysis of its commercial food waste disposal ban that was first implemented in 2014. The ban mandated that generators of one ton or more of organic waste per week must divert that material from solid waste disposal (this was lowered to 0.5 tons per week in 2022).

The report, produced by ICF, found that the regulation has produced significant economic benefits in the decade since it was introduced, including the creation of more than 1,670 jobs and $194 million in economic value while generating more than $390 million in industry activity. Notably, the number of facilities participating in food waste diversion increased from 1,350 at the start of the ban to an estimated 4,150 by 2024.

To learn more about the history of the ban and the findings of the economic impact analysis, we spoke with John Fischer, Deputy Division Director for Solid Waste Materials Management at MassDEP. The following responses have been edited for clarity and length.

Can you provide a brief history of Massachusetts’ commercial food waste disposal ban and how it has evolved over time?

In Massachusetts, we have had disposal reduction goals for a long time. Beginning in 1990, as a way to drive progress towards those goals, we started to implement waste disposal bans for common recyclable materials. These bans are done via regulation, which is different from other states that have established bans via legislative statute.

Back in the mid-90’s, MassDEP began working on a voluntary basis with supermarkets to provide free assistance to implement food waste reduction programs. And what we found is that supermarkets could divert food waste from disposal cost effectively. This led us to start thinking about what role a commercial food waste ban could play in helping keep food out of the landfill.

In 2009, we began drafting the 2020 Solid Waste Master Plan, in which we signaled that we wanted to proceed with implementing a commercial food waste disposal ban by 2014. When the final plan was published in 2013, the recommendation for the food waste disposal ban didn’t change, and, guided by extensive stakeholder discussions, the ban was rolled out in fall of 2014 at a threshold of one ton or more of food waste per week.

The initial implementation went well, with growth in the number of generators contracting for food waste diversion and associated growth in infrastructure to recycle organic material, particularly via anaerobic digestion. We were accomplishing what we had hoped to, and felt like we could go after more material.

So in 2020, we started working on an expansion to the ban, which took effect in 2022, lowering the threshold to half of a ton or more of food waste per week. And I’m excited to share that we are at the very beginning of stakeholder discussions to explore the possibility of additional threshold reductions by 2030.

And why start with commercial food waste generators?

Based on previous experience with disposal bans, we knew that they are most effective for larger institutions and businesses.

With residents, waste bans are more of an outreach tool than a mandate since enforcement is challenging. At the residential level, waste bans serve to educate the everyday consumer that certain materials don’t belong in the trash because they have value and can be recycled. But with commercial entities, we saw waste bans driving action.

So we thought that maybe we could get more bang for our buck starting with larger businesses, which could support the development of organics recycling infrastructure and build capacity to eventually be able to process more distributed sources of food waste such as smaller businesses and individual households.

What was the motivation to conduct an economic impact analysis of the commercial food waste disposal ban and what were you hoping to achieve?

The 2025 analysis is actually the second time we contracted to conduct an economic impact analysis of the food waste disposal ban, with the first occurring in 2016.

In both cases, our thinking behind it was similar. Since rolling out the ban in 2014, anecdotally, we saw investment in and expansion of organics recycling infrastructure and knew qualitatively that there was lots going on in the space.

Rather than just saying the ban supports jobs and economic development, we wanted to say specifically the amount of jobs, the amount of investment, etc., so that we could tell the story in the most compelling way.

The economic impact analysis is our attempt to put some specific numbers behind the ban.

Can you briefly share some of the key findings? Was there anything that surprised you?

The report’s findings are broken up into a few different sectors—collection/hauling, processing, food rescue, and a few others that didn’t readily fit. In total, we identified that the ban has spurred the creation of nearly 1,700 jobs, compared to 1,100 when we looked last in 2016. We also saw corresponding growth around labor income, value added to the state economy, and economic activity in the industry. In particular, we saw meaningful growth among collectors/haulers and food rescue organizations.

One surprising—and slightly disappointing—finding was a small drop-off in labor and economic activity associated with the processors segment. Overall, we saw a drop-off in the number of composting sites accepting food material, which is where a lot of labor and economic activity happens. Anaerobic digestion facilities, which may not have the same proportional labor activity, saw an increase in material processed since 2016. This is just a function of the way infrastructure has evolved.

That said, we were pleased to see continued growth across the overall food waste sector. We’re never going to be as significant an economic contributor as industries like healthcare or biotech, but for a relatively niche segment of the economy, the numbers are meaningful and help build broader support for this work.

What is the future of the Commercial Food Waste Disposal Ban?

As I noted earlier, future plans for the ban include potentially lowering the weight threshold for food waste generators who must comply. The challenge is that, because collection is less efficient and more expensive, the economics can get harder as you go to smaller generators.

To me, the best way to address that cost concern is by having more distributed infrastructure to reduce hauling distances. The closer generators are to local processing capacity, the more those economics improve. Even if all programs do not realize net savings, the closer we can get to cost neutral, the more effective we’ll be at driving widespread adoption.

I’ll also note—while this wasn’t looked at in the economic study—I’m always thinking about how we leverage our influence to drive more food waste prevention at the source. We know that source reduction creates substantial economic benefits and reduces the need to build infrastructure to process material, so any impact we could have here would be super meaningful.