The primary goal of our Composting for Community Initiative is to support and grow diversified local composting capacity that rises to meet the pressing need to divert food waste from landfills while creating rich soil, sequestering carbon, facilitating educational opportunities, and supporting good jobs. Many policy tools are available to facilitate the rapid expansion of composting for wasted food. Amplifying and highlighting model local and state policies is a critical component to facilitate widespread replication.
This Policy Resource Hub aims to provide guidance and equip policymakers, advocates, community organizations, compost facility operators, farmers, and more to promote policies to advance community-based, local composting.
Fighting Corporate Control
Public policy currently favors large-scale operations, perpetuating inequality through corporate control and consolidation. We work to combat the monopoly power that dominates our waste and food systems with policies that uplift healthy, sustainable local communities.
- Fighting Monopoly Power: How States and Cities Can Beat Back Corporate Control and Build Thriving Communities
- Fighting Monopoly Power in the Waste Industry
- Report Explores Problem of Corporate Concentration in America’s Waste and Recycling Sectors
- Three NYC Composting Failures That Reflect Troubling National Trends
Building Local Power
To meet our vision of thriving, diverse, and equitable communities, we advance local composting to harness the power of citizens and communities. Through advocacy, research, coalition-building, and policy, we work to amplify community control over local decision-making and hold corporations and governments accountable.
Tools for Local Action
There are many model rules and policymaking tools available to advance and uplift community-driven composting at the local, state, and federal levels. The resources below cover a variety of strategies to further local composting and circular communities with a particular focus on local government intervention.
- Our Model Composting Policy Library features policymaking resources such as model existing policies, legislation templates, policy guides, and more. The guidance is categorized by policy topic and level of government.
- Webinar Series: Gov’t Support for Community Composting includes six webinars detailing how cities can provide community-scale composting through policy and programmatic support. Webinars cover strategies such as public-private partnerships, local contracting and grants, zoning, capacity building, climate action, and more.
- Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Government profiles 11 city and county home composting initiatives to share lessons learned and expand adoption. The guide highlights the benefits of local composting to local governments, recommendations to improve local laws, and tools to adopt similar programs, including sample educational and outreach materials, sample ordinances, and more.
- Our Composting for Community Map is an interactive reflection of our Compost Policy Library, illustrating how communities in the United States pursue composting. This map can filter policies by multiple levels of government and by type of rule.
- Our collection of graphics on the benefits of community composting can be used by policymakers and advocates to advance policy that promotes local composting.
Food and waste systems are among the most significant contributors to climate change, as evidenced in our breakthrough report, Stop Trashing the Climate. Centering how composting combats the climate crisis is a prominent strategy to advance local policy efforts and bridge access to more resources. The policy resources below focus on composting’s ability to mitigate climate change while improving climate resiliency.
- CPR Campaign: Resuscitate the Climate is a joint effort to uplift waste reduction and materials conservation projects for federal climate action funding. Campaign resources include strategies and narratives connecting sustainable materials management to climate mitigation, model examples and template language for Climate Action Plans, advocacy resources, and more.
- Community Composting and Priority Climate Action Plans (PCAP) Guide outlines template PCAP language for community composting, model composting measures, and equity and community considerations under EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program. The guide promotes existing model examples from across the county.
- Policies on Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration include model policies and resources that promote composting as a climate action strategy. These policies highlight composting’s ability to combat the climate crisis through emissions reductions while building soil health and climate resiliency.
As healthy soil policy adoption becomes more prominent nationwide, there is an unprecedented opportunity to connect compost application as a proven soil health-building practice and to promote composting as part of healthy soil programs. The resources below present a menu of policy avenues to address the critical need to build soil health with compost.
- The Healthy Soils and Compost Policy Guide: Synergies and Opportunities provides an overview of the overlap between healthy soils and compost in policy and covers current opportunities for policy to advance soil healthy practices, high-quality compost production, and compost use throughout the country.
- On-Farm Composting Rules and Permit Exemptions organize policy options and tools to promote local on-farm composting, which builds healthy soils, supports farmers, and enhances food security. The resource details existing model policies, many of which focus on permit exemptions to remove political and operational barriers.
- On-Farm Composting and Compost Use Webinar Series features key information for policymakers and farmers about on-farm composting, policy pathways, and more. The series includes a Webinar on State Permitting Pathways for Advancing On-Farm Composting.
- Compost-Amended Soil Requirements include city and state policies leveraging the many benefits of using compost for soil health to reduce maintenance issues and associated costs. Such policies mandate the use of compost in designated circumstances to improve soil quality, conserve water, limit pollution, protect waterways, and more.
- Policies on Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration include model policies and resources that promote composting as a climate action strategy. These policies highlight composting’s ability to combat the climate crisis through emissions reductions while building soil health and climate resiliency.
A funding mechanism with a proven track record of raising funds to reduce and recycle waste is a per-ton surcharge on waste landfilled or incinerated (known as a waste disposal surcharge). The materials below provide a deep dive into this policy and funding tool, including ILSR’s template legislation, written and webinar reviews of model existing programs, and ILSR’s contribution to Maryland’s legislative efforts.
- ILSR worked with Delegate Boyce on the Wasted Food Reduction and Diversion Fund and Grant Programs Bill (HB 1318, Maryland 2024), to support local governments, small businesses, non-profits, schools, farmers, and more with wasted food prevention, rescue, recycling, and composting projects and infrastructure.
- Surcharges On Waste Disposal Fund Composting analyzes best practices and possible roadblocks for policies that allocate revenue from waste disposal surcharges to fund waste diversion, reuse, recycling, composting, and other sustainability efforts. This article features ten examples of existing regulations and can help guide the development of new legislation to fund composting and divert waste.
- Use our Model Legislation Template to draft and introduce a disposal surcharge bill in your state or locality to fund waste diversion and on-farm composting. This model encompasses the basics, from funds to cover administrative costs to detailed guidelines for grant programs, and is based on a bill originally drafted by ILSR.
- Webinar: Funding Recycling Infrastructure via Disposal Surcharges features state agency staff from states with existing disposal surcharge policies who share their experiences with this model, including best practices, challenges, and lessons learned.
- Waste Surcharges to Fund Composting and More lays out existing State and Local rules that establish a per-ton surcharge on waste landfilled or incinerated to generate funds for recycling, composting, waste diversion efforts, and other environmental programs.
ILSR has a long and successful history of exposing and fighting corporate control in the waste sector and pushing local policies to support a zero waste economy.
Zero waste policies can help advance composting, which is a powerful strategy to build a local circular economy. Composting is inherently local. Locations with the highest waste diversion levels rely on organics recycling to achieve those levels. The materials below comprise recycling and zero waste legislation, zero waste plan development, strategies to tackle policy loopholes, and advocacy resources.
- Recent Recycling Legislation in Several States Includes Aggressive New Approaches that Protect Local Decision Making highlights a round-up of recycling legislation in Maine, Colorado, Washington, and other states considering innovative new legislative approaches to recycling.
- Report: Baltimore’s Fair Development Plan for Zero Waste provides a step-by-step guide to transitioning the city from incineration toward recycling, composting, and reuse. Developed with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, the city’s plan serves as a model for replication by other localities nationwide.
- Incineration: A Dirty Secret in How States Define Renewable Energy exposes the dishonest classification of incineration as a renewable energy source, qualifying the harmful practice for subsidies in direct competition with actual renewable energy projects. The report presents political strategies that local governments can adopt to support recycling over burning, including policy recommendations and opportunities.
- Recycling Infrastructure Campaign: Webinars & More developed resources, including the “American Recycling Infrastructure Plan (RIIT)”, to advocate for the inclusion of waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting infrastructure and programs in federal policy and funding. Resources uplift best practices, funding opportunities, and policy priorities for recycling infrastructure, including a national bottle bill, zero waste, disposal surcharges, and resource recovery parks.
- ILSR’s Hierarchy to Reduce Food Waste & Grow Community highlights the importance of locally-based composting solutions as a priority over large-scale regional solutions. The hierarchy serves as a policy framework for adoption by local, state, and federal governments.
- The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Law Institute created a model compost procurement policy, a model executive order on municipal leadership on food waste reduction, and a model ordinance establishing a pay-as-you-throw program for residential municipal solid waste.
- Check out Zero Food Waste Coalition’s state policy toolkit and model legislation.
- Keep up with WasteDive’s notable recycling laws by state tracker for the latest updates on waste-related policies and laws across the country.
Join the Movement
Advocating for these policy solutions is crucial to advancing community-based composting and zero waste efforts. Exercise your civic power to advocate for policies, programs, and funding to support local composting infrastructure, such as equipment, activities, technical assistance, and training. Push local planners and elected officials to support reasonable policies and regulations, procure finished compost, contract with micro-haulers and local businesses, and provide long-term access to land.
- Share and promote our Policies for Composting & Compost Use resource to educate and raise awareness about available pro-composting policies.
- Visit the Community Compost Law & Policy Center to access policy and legal resources designed for community composters and supporters. This project by ILSR and the Sustainable Economies Law Center offers a host of guidance and tools, including a Compost Legal Research Roadmap, legal guides, advocacy materials, and more.
- Check out current funding opportunities for composting, zero-waste, sustainable materials management, and more, or add a new opportunity to the list by completing this form.
- Check out and share our three short videos and infographics highlighting the economic, environmental, and social benefits of community composting created by ILSR for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The videos are featured on EPA’s new Community Composting page, which was created with the help of ILSR.
- Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date.
Not sure where to begin? Here are three key resources to get you started.
Policymakers:
Community Composters:
Webinar Resources: Navigating Hauling Permits as a Community Composter |
 Zoning for Community-Scale Composting
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Webinar Series: Government Support for Community Composting
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Farmers:
Healthy Soils and Compost Policy Guide: Synergies and Opportunities |
On-Farm Composting Rules and Permit Exemptions
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Webinar: State Permitting Pathways for Advancing On-Farm Composting |
Header image credit: andreswd