Critical Factors and Emerging Opportunities in Food Waste Utilization and Treatment Technologies

Globally, approximately one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or discarded, comprising 1. 3 billion tons annually. Factors contributing to food waste from the food manufacturer to the consumer level are numerous. Events that may result in food waste include, but are not limited to, manufacturing food by-products, improper handling within the supply chain (e.g., cold chain deviations), misunderstood food date labels, over-purchasing, and consumer-level temperature abuse. From the manufacturer to consumer, each node in the food supply requires concerted efforts to divert food waste from entering municipal landfills. Depending on the state of the food waste, it is diverted to various outlets, from food donation for consumption to composting for soil amendment. To better understand the opportunities in the United States to divert food waste from landfills, current and emerging federal policies as well as the causes of food waste generation must be understood. Unfortunately, information on both the composition of food waste in the U.S. and how it impacts critical factors in food waste treatment, especially in food waste composting, is limited. Specifically, this review aims to: (1) discuss and compare critical factors that impact the fate of food waste and (2) examine emerging opportunities to advance the processing and products of food waste.

Case Study of an Outbreak: Resident, Staff, and Community Indicators

Outbreak investigation is not infection control. We present a self-study of factors influencing outcomes inside a single nursing home during the early stage of the outbreak - February to May 2020. We examine 3 sources of influence: Practice / Operations; Local, State & Federal Policies; Uncontrollable operational factors. Outcomes of interest include: mortality and resident / staff health. Data consists of clinical records, review of communications, and interviews with staff present during the critical period. Infection control is different from outbreak investigation. There must be a balance between staff empowerment and adherence to guidelines. In an outbreak, staff need the confidence to make decisions based on incomplete knowledge. The presentation concludes with lessons learned – what worked and what actions need improvement. There are areas requiring further analyses of policy and ethics.

Tribal Casino Labor Relations and Settler Colonialism

Sovereignty provides the legal basis for tribal casinos in the United States. However, since the industry’s rapid growth (valued at $34 billion for 2019), courts are now revisiting decades-old precedents in federal Indian law to reinterpret policies in ways that add new constraints to tribal sovereignty. Because tribal casinos often employ large numbers of non-Native Americans, tribal casino labor relations have become a new arena for contests over the boundaries of tribal sovereignty. This article investigates recent tribal casino labor relations court rulings (e.g. Little River, Soaring Eagle, and Pauma) through the lens of settler colonialism in order to understand new revisions to legal precedents. It argues that settler colonialism continues to underlie federal policies and that the growth of tribal casinos reveal that the federal government may intervene to undercut tribal sovereignty.

Follow the Money: A Closer Look at US Tobacco Industry Marketing Expenditures

Introduction: While much of the concern with tobacco industry marketing has focused on direct media advertising, a less explored form of marketing strategy is to discount prices. Price discounting is important because it keeps the purchase price low and can undermine the impact of tax increases. Methods: We examine annual marketing expenditures from 1975 to 2019 by the largest cigarette and smokeless tobacco companies. We consider three categories: direct advertising, promotional allowances, and price discounting. In addition to considering trends in these expenditures, we examine how price discounting expenditures relate to changes in product prices and excise taxes. Results: US direct advertising expenditures for cigarettes fell from 80% of total industry marketing expenditures in 1975 to less than 3% in 2019, while falling from 39% in 1985 to 6% in 2019 for smokeless tobacco. Price-discounting expenditures for cigarettes became prominent after the Master Settlement Agreement and related tax increases in 2002. By 2019, 87% of cigarette marketing expenditures were for price discounts and 7% for promotional allowances. Smokeless marketing expenditures were similar: 72% for price promotions and 13% for promotional allowances. Price discounting increased with prices and taxes until reaching their currently high levels. Conclusions: While much attention focuses on direct advertising, other marketing practices, especially price discounting, has received less attention. Local, state and federal policies that use non-tax mechanisms to increase tobacco prices and restrict industry contracts with retailers are needed to offset/disrupt industry marketing expenditures. Further study is needed to better understand industry decisions about marketing expenditures.

Making Sovereignty Mean Something: Native Nations and Creative Adaptation

Scholarship regarding Native Nations has often focused on the problems of Native Nations caused by a brutal history of genocide, repression and forced assimilation. Relatively little attention has been paid to how Native Nations creatively adapt to their circumstances in a continual process of reinvention. This article provides insights into Native Nations through examples in the lower 48 states and Alaska. This study, based on 16 interviews the author conducted with Native Nations leaders in Alaska and the lower 48 states, demonstrates how Native Nations adapt to their unique circumstances to make sovereignty meaningful, because of and in spite of federal legislation that seeks to govern Nation Nations. Ultimately, I argue that many Native Nations today are purposefully modernizing by creatively adapting to their circumstances, transforming systems of governance, and leveraging economic tools, integrating their own evolving cultural practices. While modernization implies following a Western developmental path, purposeful modernization is driven by the choices of the people. While change was forced upon Native Nations in numerous, often devastating, ways since colonization, they have nevertheless asserted agency and formed governments and economic institutions that reflect and reinforce their own cultural norms. This article highlights examples of how Native Nations and the lower 48 have adapted given the very different circumstances created in part by state and federal policies such as the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) and Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA).

Using Peacemaking Circles to Indigenize Tribal Child Welfare

Historical child welfare policies explicitly aimed to exterminate Indigenous culture and disrupt tribal cohesion. The remnants of these policies form the foundation for the contemporary child welfare system. These policies view the child as an isolated and interchangeable asset, over which parents enjoy property-like rights, and in which the child welfare system is incentivized to “save” children from perceived economic, cultural, and geographic ills through an adversarial process. Extended family, community members, and cultural connections have minimal voice or value. These underpinnings inform federal policies that influence all child welfare systems, including tribal child welfare systems. The result is that tribal child welfare systems perpetuate the individual, rights-centric, adversarial child welfare system that harms Indigenous families. Indigenous children have the right to maintain connections to their Indigenous family, tribal nation, culture, and cultural education. These rights translate into obligations the community owes to the child to ensure that these connections are robust. Tradition-based systems of dispute resolution—frequently called “peacemaking,” among other names, but which we will call “circle processes”—offer a hopeful alternative. Circle processes are rooted in an Indigenous worldview that perceives an issue, particularly a child welfare issue, as evidence of community imbalance that directly impacts the community, and conversely, imparts an obligation on the community to respond. Through the circle, family and community can complete their natural reciprocal relationship. Tribal child welfare has the potential to be a transformative system that promotes community, family, and children’s health and the self-determination and sovereignty of tribes. This Article outlines the ways in which the modern tribal child welfare system has been structured to compartmentalize families and perpetuate historical federal policies of Indian family separation. This Article then suggests that circle processes are a framework for re-Indigenizing the tribal child welfare system to not just improve outcomes (for which it has the potential to do), but to also honor the interconnected, responsibility oriented worldview of Indigenous communities. Ultimately, however, tribes should lead that re-Indigenization process, whether through a circle process framework or otherwise.