A new law in California requires food waste to be composted

A new law in California requires food waste to be composted

Transcript¹

The goal is to reduce food waste in landfills by 75%. But the measure is proving to be a challenge for both households and businesses.

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

In California, food scraps², such as the banana peel from your morning smoothie, now have to be composted. It's part of ambitious new food recycling standards. Raquel Maria Dillon from member station KQED reports.

RAQUEL MARIA DILLON, BYLINE³: Shana Bull recently started composting kitchen scraps at her home in a San Francisco suburb.

SHANA BULL: We were at home more, cooking way more often than we used to pre-pandemic.

DILLON: She bought a receptacle online...

BULL: A little compost bin⁴ - it's adorable - that we got on Amazon.

DILLON: ...And stashed⁵ it under the kitchen sink. Everything was going great until...

BULL: We went on vacation. We went down to LA. And we came back a week later, and the entire house just stunk⁶.

DILLON: Once the swarm⁷ of fruit flies cleared, she got the hang of it. Now the family's leftovers⁸ go in the green bin that gets picked up weekly. Bull says every scoop⁹ of coffee grounds or veggie trimmings she can keep out of a landfill makes a difference.

BULL: I do really hope that people make an effort and maybe even know why. I think people do better when they know why it's important.

DILLON: It's important because composting fights climate change. Under the state's organics recycling mandate¹⁰, California municipalities have to separate food and yard waste and haul it to a composting facility.

RACHEL MACHI WAGONER: I really, truly believe that this is the biggest change to our trash since we started recycling in the 1980s.

DILLON: That's the director of CalRecycle, Rachel Machi Wagoner. She says these new composting rules will reduce greenhouse gases.

WAGONER: Diverting our organic waste is the single fastest and easiest thing that every single Californian and every American can do to fight climate change.

DILLON: Organic waste that breaks down in landfills gets trapped without air and gives off methane¹¹, a potent¹² greenhouse gas which contributes to climate change. As these new rules roll out, businesses will also be required to compost and donate edible¹³ food to food banks and charities. First, large grocery stores and food wholesalers; later, restaurants and cafeterias will have to comply or face fines.

So in the next few years, all California food businesses will have to operate like Veritable Vegetable, a wholesale¹⁴ organic produce distributor in San Francisco. Inside a high-tech¹⁵ warehouse¹⁶, huge cooler doors slide open and close, like something on the Star Trek¹⁷ Enterprise. Forklifts zoom¹⁸ into coolers stacked with produce boxes. Here's Chief Administrator¹⁹ Shira Tannor.

SHIRA TANNOR: We'll get a pallet of cucumbers that come in completely melted. No one's going to eat them. They have to pretty much go to compost.

DILLON: Produce that's blemished²⁰ or just past ripe or not pretty enough for market shelves or restaurants gets sold to processors or donated to the local food bank.

TANNOR: What we're normally donating is stuff that is edible but not sellable. Maybe it just doesn't look as good as we thought it was going to look when it came in.

DILLON: The company has been composting since 1983, so cutting down on waste is nothing new.

TANNOR: Veritable Vegetable grew out of a political movement. So its core values, from where it started, were really all about promoting a healthier and more sustainable world.

DILLON: Now, decades later, restaurants, grocery stores and people who eat will have to get on board. California's goal is to compost 75% of organics by 2025. The state estimates that will reduce greenhouse gases as much as taking a million cars off the road each year.

For NPR News, I'm Raquel Maria Dillon in San Francisco, Calif.

(SOUNDBITE OF VALANTE'S "IN BREVI")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

5 stashed   

v.贮藏( stash的过去式和过去分词 )；隐藏；藏匿；藏起

参考例句：

• She has a fortune stashed away in various bank accounts. 她有一大笔钱存在几个不同的银行账户下。
• She has a fortune stashed away in various bank accounts. 她在不同的银行账户上秘密储存了一大笔钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 stunk   

v.散发出恶臭( stink的过去分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透

参考例句：

• Those rotten eggs have stunk the place. 那些臭蛋把这个地方弄得恶臭。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• A stunk made a bad smell in our yard last night. 昨天臭鼬在我们院子里弄得好臭。 来自互联网

7 swarm   

n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入

参考例句：

• There is a swarm of bees in the tree.这树上有一窝蜜蜂。
• A swarm of ants are moving busily.一群蚂蚁正在忙碌地搬家。

8 leftovers   

n.剩余物，残留物，剩菜

参考例句：

• He can do miracles with a few kitchen leftovers.他能用厨房里几样剩饭做出一顿美餐。
• She made supper from leftovers she had thrown together.她用吃剩的食物拼凑成一顿晚饭。

9 scoop   

n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出

参考例句：

• In the morning he must get his boy to scoop it out.早上一定得叫佣人把它剜出来。
• Uh,one scoop of coffee and one scoop of chocolate for me.我要一勺咖啡的和一勺巧克力的。

10 mandate   

n.托管地；命令，指示

参考例句：

• The President had a clear mandate to end the war.总统得到明确的授权结束那场战争。
• The General Election gave him no such mandate.大选并未授予他这种权力。

11 methane   

n.甲烷，沼气

参考例句：

• The blast was caused by pockets of methane gas that ignited.爆炸是由数袋甲烷气体着火引起的。
• Methane may have extraterrestrial significance.甲烷具有星际意义。

12 potent   

adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的

参考例句：

• The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
• We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。

13 edible   

n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的

参考例句：

• Edible wild herbs kept us from dying of starvation.我们靠着野菜才没被饿死。
• This kind of mushroom is edible,but that kind is not.这种蘑菇吃得，那种吃不得。

14 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。

15 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

16 warehouse   

n.仓库；vt.存入仓库

参考例句：

• We freighted the goods to the warehouse by truck.我们用卡车把货物运到仓库。
• The manager wants to clear off the old stocks in the warehouse.经理想把仓库里积压的存货处理掉。

17 trek   

vi.作长途艰辛的旅行；n.长途艰苦的旅行

参考例句：

• We often go pony-trek in the summer.夏季我们经常骑马旅行。
• It took us the whole day to trek across the rocky terrain.我们花了一整天的时间艰难地穿过那片遍布岩石的地带。

18 zoom   

n.急速上升；v.突然扩大，急速上升

参考例句：

• The airplane's zoom carried it above the clouds.飞机的陡直上升使它飞到云层之上。
• I live near an airport and the zoom of passing planes can be heard night and day.我住在一个飞机场附近，昼夜都能听到飞机飞过的嗡嗡声。

19 administrator   

n.经营管理者，行政官员

参考例句：

• The role of administrator absorbed much of Ben's energy.行政职务耗掉本很多精力。
• He has proved himself capable as administrator.他表现出管理才能。

20 blemished   

v.有损…的完美，玷污( blemish的过去式 )

参考例句：

• His reputation was blemished by that article. 他的名声被那篇文章玷污了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The scandal has blemished her shining reputation. 这件丑闻损害了她辉煌的声誉。 来自《简明英汉词典》