Earth911 Podcast: World Centric’s Erin Levine on California’s Composting Progress and a Low-Waste Holiday

Erin Levine, the resource recovery manager at World Centric, a maker of compostable packaging and tableware, returns to the show to share ideas about a low-waste holiday season and discuss the evolution of composting in California. The holidays are a time for family, community, faith, and fun, but they are also some of the most wasteful days of the year — Americans toss more than a third of the food grown annually. Erin recently contributed an article to Earth911, Tips for Planning a Sustainable Holiday Meal. We’ll hear her ideas about reducing waste and leftover food that too often ends up in a landfill, where they generate 14.5% of U.S. methane emissions, a greenhouse gas that warms the atmosphere many times faster than CO2. From meal planning tools to how to store and donate leftovers, Erin explains how she plans for a sustainable party.

Erin last talked with us in March, when the state’s mandatory composting law, SB 1383, or the Short-lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy, had just been put into practice. We’ll get an update about progress, how it’s changing the options for Californians, and progress toward clear definitions of compostability for bioplastics and fiber-based packaging. World Centric has worked to eliminate PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” from its fiber packaging and is introducing bamboo- and bagasse-based tableware, which will make the product of industrial composting programs safe for use in agriculture and home gardens. California’s statewide composting progress has been slow because of the lack of industrial composting capacity, which creates the higher temperatures necessary to break down many materials.

You can learn more about WorldCentric at worldcentric.com.