“Bills Seek to Beef Up Enforcement of Rhode Island’s Food Waste Ban“

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

March 2, 2026

The 2021 law requiring Rhode Island schools to divert their food waste from the Central Landfill has no enforcement measures. (ecoRI News)

PROVIDENCE — It was after dinner at her son’s wedding last May at Fort Adams when Rep. Lauren Carson, D-Newport, asked one of the waiters a basic follow-up question. Where was the leftover food going to go?

The waiter, said Carson, told her it was all going to go straight into the garbage. None of it was going to be composted or diverted from the landfill.

“I said, ‘Hmm, I don’t think it should really work that way,’” Carson said at a meeting of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday. “And that night in May, I came up with the bill.”

Most businesses aren’t required to compost, and hauling food waste to the landfill, as the status quo, remains a cheaper option. Carson’s bill (H7735) would require caterers to come up with food waste diversion plans, applicable to events catered with 50 or more people. Plans would be submitted to the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, which could fine businesses up to $500 for noncompliance.

Caterers would have to designate a composting agent or hire a food waste hauler company to handle it for them.

Legislation regarding food waste and composting is a growing trend in the General Assembly in recent years. Rhode Island only has a single landfill, the Central Landfill in Johnston, in which some 80,000 tons of food waste is buried every year. The landfill is expected to reach capacity in the next 20 years, with little in the way of state plans for a replacement.

Carson pointed to Connecticut as a warning sign for the Ocean State. The Constitution State generates 2.24 million tons of waste annually, a third of which is exported to other states for disposal, a costly solution.

“That’s a tremendous burden on taxpayers and private waste haulers,” Carson said. “And that could be our future if we really don’t start diverting our waste.”

Ryan Moot, manager of government affairs for the RI Hospitality Association, said his organization’s members broadly support food sustainability and environmental goals in the bill, but not how it is assigned responsibility. The bill would put undue, administrative burdens to make Rhode Island caterers less competitive, according to Moot.

“Any additional regulatory burdens would face further strain on small and mid-size businesses that are still working to remain viable in a post-pandemic economy,” he said.

DEM, meanwhile, said it had concerns about its ability to implement the letter of the proposed law with current resources.

“Instituting mandatory food waste diversion requirements for caterers would require additional staff to create the annual diversion plan form, develop regulations, and enforce the provisions of the legislation,” Terry Gray, DEM director, wrote in a letter to the committee.

In past years the General Assembly has passed different composting legislation to boost haulers and divert waste. The most prominent legislation is the 2021 food waste ban, covering schools and other educational institutions.

Those laws are mostly unfunded mandates; there’s no penalties for schools to comply with the food waste ban, nor is there funding or legislation for them to start composting. In the past, organizations such as the Rhode Island Schools Recycling Project have been awarded grants to work with schools.

“There was never really any assignment to any particular agency to be the enforcer,” Rep. Terri Cortvriend, D-Portsmouth, said.

Cortvriend aims to change that this session, introducing a bill (H7622) that empowers DEM to make regulations and give the food waste ban some teeth.

Warren Heyman, organizing director of the Rhode Island School Recycling Project, credited their presence in 16 school districts to the superintendents and school principals who asked for their composting services.

But, Heyman said, plenty of other school districts never took composting efforts seriously in the long-term without some kind of penalty backing up the law.

“It makes no sense to pass a law no one has to pay attention to,” Heyman said.