Piles of food scraps mixed with yard waste gently released steam into the crisp winter air at Lewis Farm in Concord, where James Meinecke regularly turns them over to make rich compost.

Starting Feb. 1, things are about to get a lot busier for him.

That’s the day New Hampshire’s new statewide food waste ban goes into effect, and Lewis Farm is gearing up to handle an influx of food scraps.

Under the new law, anyone generating at least one ton of food waste per week — such as schools, hospitals and large businesses — can no longer send it to a landfill or incinerator if there’s an authorized composting or alternative facility within 20 miles of the point of generation.

“It’s a good step in the right direction,” Meinecke said as he prepared to handle perhaps tons of food waste and let people know his farm was ready for the truckloads to arrive.

But if any of these food scraps are good enough for the animals — like his pigs, Porkbelly and Mousetail — they’ll get first dibs before the rest gets tossed into the compost pile.

Having worked in waste management before, Meinecke is excited to see the shift this law could bring to the state. He recalls his frustration with the way all kinds of waste — food, plastic, paper — used to get mixed together.

“I was horrified by just the randomness of everything that gets thrown in there and mixed up because we don’t have a better way to do it,” said Meinecke.

Meanwhile, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES) is preparing to support the transition. They’ve issued a request for proposals to analyze the state’s food waste generators and infrastructure.

The study, expected to be completed by November will identify who’s impacted by the ban and assess the capacity of facilities to handle the food scraps.

Jenny Mitchell, a food waste diversion specialist at DES, acknowledged that the state is still in the early stages of implementing the law, noting that the rule-making process is underway and typically takes about a year to finalize.

The department’s primary focus at the moment is offering technical assistance, along with outreach and education, rather than fines and penalties.

“Enforcement would come way farther down the road if after we’ve already helped everyone and identified everyone that needs to comply and help them establish their programs,” explained Mitchell. “We’re not going to go out of the gate trying to penalize people, because we know it’s quite a very large adjustment and we want everyone to succeed.”

Still, with the ban less than a month away, many businesses and composting farms remain unaware of the changes.

In the waste diversion hierarchy, the first priority is to generate less food waste at school, restaurants and stores. Next comes donating leftover usable food to those in need, and only after that is composting considered.

Food banks are treading carefully with the new law.

Dennis Gichana, director of operations at the New Hampshire Food Bank, explained that while they support efforts to keep food out of landfills, they don’t want to see food that is still fit for consumption tossed away, nor do they want to accept food that is rotten.

“We don’t want to be the dumping ground or the ones that are receiving the waste,” said Gichana. “We don’t want to do that.”

The New Hampshire Food Bank only accepts shelf-stable items and avoids prepared foods.

Nancy Mellitt, director of development at the food bank, added that any food they distribute must have an ingredient statement.

“I don’t think that we’ll receive a lot of food beyond what we could take and part of that is we cannot take some of the foods from restaurants or conference centers or similar sources because we follow USDA food safety, but some of the pantries can take some of the food items that we’re not able to,” explained Mellitt.

The New Hampshire Food Bank hasn’t yet received many inquiries about the upcoming food waste ban, with most people still unaware of the change. Mellitt expects the calls to start rolling in soon — likely the day after the ban takes effect.

The question remains whether a food waste ban will work in New Hampshire.

After the legislature passed a bill banning food waste from being dumped in landfills in 2023, New Hampshire joined other New England states with similar laws. Maine is the only state in the region that doesn’t have a food waste ban.

A recent study shows that, except for Massachusetts, these laws haven’t made much of a difference in reducing the amount of waste ending up in landfills.

However, Peter Blair, policy and advocacy director at Just Zero, a national nonprofit, believes it’s misleading to say these programs haven’t been successful. He argues there’s more to the story.

“I do think that this can be really impactful for New Hampshire and I think it’s going to work,” said Blair. “But for it to work, I think New Hampshire is going to have to be nimble and learn lessons from the other states that have been implementing these programs for several years.”

Blair explained that for the law to be most effective, it needs a clear, step-by-step approach from education and outreach to enforcement, and even expanding the program, like extending the radius for mass food waste generators.

The food waste ban also opens up opportunities for entrepreneurs to build food diversion facilities, like anaerobic digesters, which are currently hard to find in New Hampshire. As more of these facilities are built, the cost for businesses to divert their food scraps will gradually decrease.

Although Meinecke doesn’t offer hauling services, he encourages people to contact haulers to drop food scraps off at his farm. He hopes to accept one ton of compostable material for around $35.

Meinecke has a permit to accept up to 35 tons of waste, but he’s uncertain how much he’ll actually get.

“I think like all point source producers who are going to be impacted by the new law, nobody knows where to do it, how to do it, or how much it’s going to cost,” said Meinecke. “It will take a while to figure it all out. It’s still new.”

In 2023, DES reported that 171,785 tons of food waste from residents, businesses and institutions ended up in landfills.

Blair believes that if the program works as planned, it could create new jobs and businesses, while also reducing the amount of waste sent to disposal facilities and in turn delaying the need to expand existing landfills.

“If you are a restaurant, if you’re a hospital, if you’re a school, you’re not really thinking about your waste, you’re focused on giving people meals and educating your students or providing medical services, but so it can be scary to think about this law applying to you, and how it’s not exactly what you signed up for,” Blair said. “But really it can be a big money saver once you get over that initial shock and I think the department’s got to play a big role in helping make everyone see what a benefit this could be.”

Sruthi Gopalakrishnan can be reached at sgopalakrishnan@cmonitor.com