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Methane emissions from landfilled food are fueling our climate crisis. In 2018, 34 percent of the waste stream to California's municipal landfills was organic waste, such as food and green waste. Landfilled organic waste emits 20 percent of California's methane, and an estimated 1.1 million tons of potentially donatable food were discarded in landfills in 2018. Yet, more than 250,000 households in Los Angeles (LA) County were food insecure (i.e., without reliable access to sufficient food) in 2021. California's 2016 food recovery mandate, Senate Bill 1383 (SB 1383), could make an important contribution toward mitigating the climate crisis and food insecurity. SB 1383 aims to divert and reduce the disposal of organic waste and therefore reduce emissions from super-pollutants, such as methane, from landfills. This effort includes the recovery of edible food for human consumption. In this report, the authors review food recovery in LA County (focusing on the logistics of recovering excess edible food from food outlets) and specific challenges relating to SB 1383 implementation, and they suggest ways in which the mandate could be turned into an opportunity for innovation and capacity-building. They draw on past research, a review of SB 1383 government documentation, and interviews conducted in early 2022 with 38 stakeholders representing food recovery organizations (FROs) and food recovery services (FRSs); food recovery advocates; county, city, and state agencies; human services agencies (HSAs); edible food generators (EFGs); and waste haulers.

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• Reference Manager
• EndNote
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Emergency managers in the United States face a challenging operating environment characterized by more-frequent and -intense storms, extended or year-round wildfire seasons, multiple simultaneous disasters, and an ongoing global pandemic. The sheer magnitude and growing frequency of weather and climate disasters are straining the capacities, capabilities, and systems that enable the United States to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. To support the U.S. emergency management system, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other entities have created constructs - programs, grants, assessments, doctrine, and coordination bodies - at different times and in response to various events and needs. The overall number of constructs has grown, and the poor integration among them can worsen emergency management services and disaster outcomes. Researchers reviewed 31 FEMA-selected constructs for opportunities to streamline, simplify, and strengthen the system, assessing how overlap, duplication, and fragmentation could affect implementation and outcomes. In this report, the researchers describe options for addressing the issues and impacts identified. Some options are designed to address specific impacts or individual constructs, while others propose broader solutions that would transform the emergency management system. Truly transformative changes generally require a broad consensus and engagement by multiple actors and would therefore likely be more difficult than smaller-scale changes to achieve. However, adoption of such options also offers the greatest opportunity for significant streamlining. The authors also discuss trade-offs in costs and unintended consequences.