California’s launch of the largest food recycling program in the US!

Today we are going to talk about California’s launch of the largest food recycling program in the US.

California is seeking to bring down the methane pollution from organic waste! Methane is a gas that plays a big role in contributing to global warming! So the US State of California is launching a statewide food waste recycling program. This will be started in January of 2022, and it will be the largest initiative of the US according to the Los Angeles Times.

When microbes break down food waste, they generate methane as a waste product. Methane traps 80 times more heat than CO2! Methane only stays in the atmosphere for only a decade. Stopping methane pollution is the key to limiting the warming of our planet!

In California, food, and yard waste account for around a fifth of statewide methane emissions. Under the new recycling program, most California citizens will be required to deposit food waste in green bins rather than in trash cans. Cities will either compost the organic waste or turn it into fertilizer. They can also harvest the methane from rotting waste and burn it to generate power.

This is the biggest recycling change since the 1980s said Rachel Wagoner who is the director of the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery!

Let’s hope that this amazing process comes to all of the other 49 states and then to other countries to make Mother Earth a better place to live for our future generations to come!

Source: Yale Environment 360

By Sri Nihal Tammana