With America Recycles Day Saturday, Massachusetts environmental officials are celebrating the Commonwealth’s new commercial food waste ban – the first statewide ban in the nation. The state’s Commissioner of Environmental Protection will visit the Red Lion Inn to see how the renowned hotel is shipping its food waste to a nearby farm.Commissioner David Cash and other environmental leaders plan to tour the Stockbridge lodging icon Friday, to see how businesses that produce one ton of food waste a year are complying with regulations rolled out in October. Those businesses must re-purpose, compost or use anaerobic digestion facilities instead of sending their food waste to a landfill. DEP spokesman Ed Coletta says Massachusetts creates enough food waste each year to fill Fenway Park to the top of the Green Monster 20 times.
“Our hope is to eliminate about a third of that material so you’re talking probably seven Fenway Parks,” said Coletta.
Coletta says about 1,400 of the 1,700 businesses impacted by the ban are in compliance.
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