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May 19, 2023

This e-newsletter delivers announcements about resources, events, webinars, funding opportunities, and more from EPA and our partners. Topics include circular economy, reduce/reuse/recycle, food loss and waste, electronics, plastics, municipal solid waste, and the built environment.

EPA News

EPA Offers New Resource for Community Food Waste Prevention

EPA’s Preventing Wasted Food in Your Community: A Social Marketing Toolkit is now available! The toolkit is a resource for states, territories, local governments, Tribes, and nongovernmental organizations who want to start behavior change campaigns to help prevent food waste in their communities. The toolkit includes a planning process that uses social marketing principles to ensure communities are tailoring the campaigns to their communities’ needs. The toolkit is accompanied by food waste prevention campaign materials created by municipalities and organizations that are available for use and customization by any community.

EPA Seeks Public Comment on the Recycling Infrastructure and Market Opportunities Map

EPA’s Recycling Infrastructure and Market Opportunities Map, which was released on April 21, 2023, is now open for public comment through June 26, 2023.

The map displays existing recycling and municipal solid waste infrastructure, estimated per capita generation and recycling of post-consumer material, and other relevant market factors.

By providing a comprehensive resource for understanding opportunities about post-consumer materials management, this map can help develop and strengthen primary and secondary end markets for materials, support cleaner communities by reducing the amount of plastic and other waste entering landfills, and provide opportunities to address climate change by diverting more materials from landfills.

EPA seeks public comment on currently available data and information used in the map, specifically about the accuracy and completeness of the data, ease of use, graphics, and future updates.

Check out the Recycling Infrastructure and Market Opportunities Map on our website.  

EPA Seeks Feedback on the Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution

EPA is soliciting comments on the “Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution,” which builds upon EPA’s National Recycling Strategy and focuses on actions to reduce, reuse, collect, and capture plastic waste. Comments are due by June 16, 2023. EPA is asking the public to consider several key questions in the draft strategy. Submit your comments at Regulations.gov by following the online instructions provided.

EPA Opens the Fifth Round of Surveys of Anaerobic Digestion Facilities Processing Food Waste in the U.S.

A new survey is open for anaerobic digestion facilities processing food waste in the U.S. This is the fifth in EPA’s Anaerobic Digestion Data Collection Project. The survey collects data from three types of facilities: stand-alone digesters, on-farm co-digesters, and water resource recovery facilities with anaerobic digestion that co-digest food waste. For the first time this year, EPA created one survey instead of three to cover all facility types. Data from this survey enables policymakers, investors, and interested parties to gain a comprehensive picture of how food waste is being handled in anaerobic digestion facilities across the country. More about this project is available on EPA’s website, including reports from the previous four rounds of data collection.

EPA Launches Interactive Map of Sea Level Rise Around Hazardous Waste Sites Along the U.S. Coastline

On May 18, 2023, EPA launched a new data visualization to show the projected sea level rise around hazardous waste facilities within estimated flood zones along the U.S. coastline, as part of a whole-of-government approach to confronting the climate crisis and protecting communities. EPA developed this map to help coastal communities, states, regions, and hazardous waste facility managers to better prepare for the impacts of climate change; independently assess their sea level rise vulnerabilities; and help inform actions they can take to become more resilient to climate change.  Explore the new data visualization which shares projections up to the year 2100 as well as resources for what communities can do.

Funding Opportunities

EPA Mountains & Plains Region Seeks Grant Applications

EPA Region 8 is soliciting applications that address the national and regional priority of decreasing the environmental impact of materials with a focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This funding opportunity is designed to both decrease materials generated (source reduction) and increase the diversion of materials through reuse, recycling, and other strategies.

Applications must directly benefit at least one of the EPA Region 8 States (Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming) or one of the 28 tribal nations in the Region.

Applications are due May 22, 2023.

Learn about this grant program and how to apply.

EPA New England Seeks Applications for Healthy Communities Grants

EPA New England’s Healthy Communities Grant Program is currently accepting applications for projects that will benefit one or more New England communities (in EPA Region 1). 

The Healthy Communities Grant Program supports EPA’s mission by integrating many EPA New England programs including Air Quality Outreach, Asthma and Indoor Air, Children’s Environmental Health, Clean, Green and Healthy Schools Initiative, Energy Efficiency Program, Environmental Justice Program, Pollution Prevention, Sustainable Materials Management, Toxics and Pesticides, and Water Infrastructure (Stormwater, Wastewater, and Drinking Water).

The Healthy Communities Grant Program anticipates awarding approximately 15 cooperative agreements from these project applications in 2023.

Applications are due May 26, 2023.

Learn about this grant program and how to apply.

EPA Seeks Applications for Pollution Prevention Grant in Environmental Justice

The purpose of this program to provide pollution prevention (P2) technical assistance to businesses in improving human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities.

Grantees must demonstrate that the projects will improve human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities by implementing P2 approaches.

Eligible entities include states, state entities (colleges and universities recognized as instrumentalities of the state), the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, and federally recognized Tribes and intertribal consortia.

Applications are due June 6, 2023.

Learn about this grant program and how to apply.

EPA Seeks Applications for Pollution Prevention Grant Through Safer Products

The purpose of this program to provide P2 technical assistance to businesses in improving human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities.

The program aims to increase the supply, demand, and use of safer and more sustainable products, such as those that are certified by EPA’s Safer Choice program, or those that conform to EPA’s Recommendations for Specifications, Standards and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing.

A project example is “Accelerate substitution of Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in food contact materials (e.g., utensils, wrapping film, paper coatings, plastic containers treated with PFAS, compostable food ware, etc).”

Eligible entities include states, state entities (colleges and universities recognized as instrumentalities of the state), the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, and federally recognized Tribes and intertribal consortia.

Applications are due June 20, 2023.

Learn about this funding opportunity and how to apply. 

EPA Offers Mid-Atlantic Sustainable Materials Management Funding Opportunity

This opportunity focuses on the development of municipal recycling and composting/anaerobic digestion programs.

EPA Region 3 announced the availability of $150,000 in grant funding for Sustainable Materials Management projects that will improve local post-consumer materials management systems in the Mid-Atlantic Region.

Applications must seek to improve the ability of communities to make progress towards the National Recycling Goal or the U.S. 2030 Food Loss and Waste Reduction Goal and directly benefit at least one of the EPA Region 3 States (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia) or one of the seven federally recognized Tribes in the region.

Eligible entities include state, local, tribal, interstate, and intrastate government agencies and instrumentalities, as well as nonprofit organizations that are not 501(c)(4) organizations that lobby, including non-profit educational institutions and non-profit hospitals.

Applications are due by July 14, 2023.

Learn about this funding opportunity and how to apply.

EPA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant Opens in June

The next EPA SBIR Phase I solicitation is anticipated to open in June 2023.

EPA will host an informational webinar on June 6^th at 2 PM EST to provide an overview of this year’s topic and proposal requirements.

More information about the webinar and this year’s solicitation topics will be on the SBIR Funding Opportunities webpage and sent out via the EPA SBIR listserv.

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Announces Grants for Food Waste Reduction

USDA announced the availability of up to $9.5 million for Compost and Food Waste Reduction pilot projects for Fiscal Year 2023. The cooperative agreements support projects that develop and test strategies for planning and implementing municipal compost plans and food waste reduction plans. 

Applications are due June 15, 2023.

Learn about this funding opportunity and how to apply.

Learn about food loss and waste-related funding opportunities from the USDA.

USDA Seeks Applications for Sustainable Agricultural Systems Grants

USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture seeks creative and visionary applications that take a systems approach for projects which are expected to significantly improve the supply of affordable, safe, nutritious, and accessible agricultural products, while fostering economic development and rural prosperity in America.

These approaches must demonstrate current needs and anticipate future social, cultural, behavioral, economic, health, and environmental impacts. Additionally, the outcomes of the work being proposed should result in societal benefits, including promotion of rural prosperity and enhancement of quality of life for all those involved in food and agricultural value chains from production to utilization and consumption.

Applications are due July 13, 2023.

Learn about this grant program and how to apply.

Partner News 

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and Kroger Zero Hunger, Zero Waste Foundation Award $2 Million in Grants for Food Waste Measurement

To accelerate the development of methodologies that can be used to measure household food waste, the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research is awarding a cumulative total of $1 million to three grantees: Oregon State University, The Ohio State University, and the University of Florida.

The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation is providing matching funding for these grants for a total $2 million investment. These three grants will advance the development of innovative household food waste measurement tools and technologies.

Upcoming USDA Webinar on Composting Awareness (with the U.S. EPA)

May 24, 2023, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Eastern Time)

This webinar is the second in a series from USDA’s Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production, as part of the People’s Garden Initiative.

Learn about the many benefits of creating and using compost, from diverting food from the landfill to improving your garden soil. Find out about federal funding opportunities to address food loss and waste. Learn about innovative composting programs in the City of Philadelphia and on Governors Island in New York City.

Register for the webinar here.