This ICR has
been approved for one year. Upon re-submission to OMB, EPA must
provide a Supporting Statement B and provide a robust rationale and
justification for collecting the data.
Inventory as of this Action
Requested
Previously Approved
09/30/2020
36 Months From Approved
12/31/2019
254
0
460
127
0
231
0
0
0
EPAs Sustainable Food Management (SFM)
Program promotes the sustainable management of food which is a
systematic approach that seeks to reduce wasted food and its
associated impacts over its entire lifecycle. The lifecycle of food
includes use of natural resources, manufacturing, sales, and
consumption and ends with decisions on recovery or final disposal.
Diversion of food waste from landfills is a critical component of
this effort. In order to effectively divert food waste from
landfills, sufficient capacity to process the diverted materials is
required. Knowledge of organics recycling capacity is needed to
facilitate food waste diversion and anaerobic digestion facilities
provide a significant amount of the needed capacity. EPAs food
recovery hierarchy prioritizes potential actions to prevent and
divert wasted food. According to the hierarchy, processing wasted
food via anaerobic digestion is a more desirable option than
landfilling or incineration because it creates more benefits for
the environment, society and the economy. Anaerobic digestion of
food waste and other organic materials generates renewable energy,
reduces methane emissions to the atmosphere, and provides
opportunities to improve soil health through the production of soil
amendments. The SFM program supports these efforts by educating
state and local governments and communities about the benefits of
wasted food diversion. The SFM program also builds partnerships
with state agencies and other strategic partners interested in
developing organics recycling capacity and provides tools to assist
organizations in developing anaerobic digestion (AD) projects. The
nationwide collection of data about AD facilities processing food
waste began in 2017 with a survey of all known AD facilities under
the currently approved Information Collection Request (ICR). EPA
published the first annual report of findings based on this data in
July 2018. EPA is now renewing the ICR in order to continue to
monitor growth and evaluate trends in the capacity for processing
of food waste and the amount of food waste being processed via AD
in the United States. Data will be collected using electronic
surveys that will be distributed to respondents by email and will
be available on EPAs AD website. Participation in this data
collection effort is voluntary. Respondents are not required to
reveal confidential business information.
The number of respondents was
revised using a more accurate count derived from the first year of
data collection (2017). The annual time burden was adjusted down as
a result of the lesser number of projected respondents.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.