Dive Summary:

• The state of Massachusetts is looking to ban commercial food waste from entering landfills and incinerators by July 1 of 2014.
• According to environmental officials, the state wants to divert 500,000 tons of organic matter from landfills and wants to include residential waste in the ban by the end of the decade.
• Organic food waste would be donated, repurposed, composted, used for animal feed or sent to an anaerobic digestion facility.

From the article:

The proposed food waste ban would help the state reach its goals to reduce the waste stream by 30 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.

To ensure that there will be sufficient facilities in Massachusetts to handle the waste resulting from the ban, state agencies are coordinating feasibility studies to build anaerobic digestion facilities on state-owned land.