Based on article by R. Daniel Mann
Question: It pains me to throw out leftovers. Often, after a few days, it is clear that no one will eat any more (although they are still edible), and my family wants me to throw them out. We asked a rabbi, who told us to put them in a bag before throwing into the garbage. My family thought this was strange. Must that be done?
Answer:
Bal Tashchit is the Hebrew term for “do not destroy” and prohibits unnecessarily destroying or disposing of useful things. Although the Bible specifically mentions the senseless destruction of fruit trees (Devarim 20:19-20), the Rabbis understood the prohibition to include other types of senseless waste.
First, we will discuss bal tashchit, the prohibition to destroy things that should be used. The classical formulation (Rambam, Melachim 6:10) is of a destructive action, but cases of wasting a usable resource, e.g., throwing out a salvageable cup of wine (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 170:22) are included. But the halacha, even regarding the most severe case of bal tashchit, cutting down fruit trees, is very balanced and practical – certain things are just not worthwhile to keep (see Bava Kama 91b; Living the Halachic Process VI, G-13).
It is inappropriate and arguably forbidden to make ridiculous amounts of food and throw out the leftovers at meal’s end. However, making a little extra on purpose (appropriate for a mother or hostess) and sometimes having more leftovers than expected so that you do not succeed in finishing it, is not wasteful or forbidden. (Feeling compelled to finish to the point of eating unhealthily is certainly misguided.) Norms in society or segments therein and circumstances likely impact on what is considered illegitimately wasteful. Therefore, while some view it is bal tashchit for a caterer to throw out large amounts of food at the end of an affair (Shevet Halevi IV:225), we agree with the approach that when there is no reasonably easy alternative (we encourage positive planning), it is not forbidden (Etz Hasadeh 35:(14) in the name of Rav Elyashiv).
It is standard practice to protect “foods” with kedusha before placing them in a garbage. Examples include: teruma (see Derech Emunah, Terumot 2:(399)); hafrashat challa (see Minchat Yitzchak IV:13; kedushat shvi’it (see Yalkut Yosef, Shvi’it 15:13). Regular foods do not have “kedusha.” K’zayit-sized pieces of bread do not have kedusha per se, but their “higher status” makes it forbidden to “disgrace it” even if it does not cause “damage,” which does not apply to other foods (Berachot 50b).
Some claim that throwing food in the garbage is doing something active to make it unfit to eat, and therefore one should not do so even if he will clearly anyway not be eating it or giving to another. In some ways, it is more stringent than teruma or challa, where we have an interest in prompt disposal to prevent someone from mistakenly eating it. Here it is possible to wait for it to deteriorate until it is inedible. (Indeed, Mishneh Halachot 15:64 says that putting food in a bag is not enough because the bag will not hold up in the garbage truck.) But this is not the minhag.
Etz Hasadeh (35:(13)) cites a few contemporary poskim who require or recommend putting the food in a bag before throwing it into the garbage. But this too would be a new stringent practice, representing a big jump from arrangements to avoid marginal bizuy, which in the past were reserved for holy objects. It is best if we can provide logic and precedent to support the very broad minhag to throw leftovers directly into a garbage.
The main idea is that normal practices of civilized people are not a disgrace. For example, while it is a disgrace to rub food on the skin instead of eating it, when it is normal (e.g., olive oil), it is permitted (Be’ur Halacha to 171:1). It is not that the need overcomes the problem, but that the fact that it is normal precludes its being disgraceful (ibid.). Also, we do put bags in our kitchen garbages, and the contents are mainly leftover food and used disposables, which are removed before decomposing occurs. Therefore, when there are not unseemly things inside, it is quite redundant (and a waste of non-biodegradable bags) to put each set of leftovers in a separate bag.
The Root Reasons of Bal Tashchit
Sefer HaChinukh: The Book of [Mitzvah] Education, evidently by Rabbi Pinhas haLevi of Barcelona, 16th century, translated by Charles Wengrov. Feldheim Publishers: Jerusalem, vol. 5 p. 145 “The root reason for the precept [of Bal Tashchit/do not destroy] is known: for it is in order to train our spirits to love what is good and beneficial and to cling to it; and as a result, good fortune will cling to us, and we will move well away from every evil thing and from every matter of destructiveness. [This is the way of the kindly men of piety and the conscientiously observant; they love peace and are happy at the good fortune of people, and bring them near the Torah.] They will not destroy even a mustard seed in the world, and they are distressed at every ruination and spoilage that they see; and if they are able to do any rescuing, they will save anything from destruction, with all their power.”
Rabbi Shampshon Rafael Hirsch (19th century, Germany), Horeb, sections 397,398 [Lo tashchit], 'do not destroy', is] “the most comprehensive warning to human beings not to misuse the position which Gd has given them as masters of the worlds and its matter to capricious, passionate, or merely thoughtless wasteful destruction of anything on earth.” He continues in Horeb, “If ...you should regard the beings beneath you as objects without rights, not perceiving Gd Who created them, and therefore desire that they feel the might of your presumptuous mood, instead of using them only as the means of wise human activity—then Gd’s call proclaims to you, “Do not destroy anything!” (bang) Be a mensch! Only if you use the things around you for wise human purposes, sanctified by the word of My teaching, only then are you a mensch and have the right over them which I have given you as a human...However, if you destroy, if you ruin, at that moment you are not a human...and have no right to the things around you. I lent them to you for wise use only; never forget that I lent them to you. As soon as you use them unwisely, be it the greatest or the smallest, you commit treachery against my world, you commit murder and robbery against my property, you sin against Me!” ...In truth, there is no one nearer to idolatry than one who can disregard the fact that all things are the creatures and property of Gd, and who then presumes to have the right, because he has the might, to destroy them according to a presumptuous act of will. Yes, that one is already serving the most powerful idols—anger, pride, and above all ego, which in its passion regards itself as the master of things.”
Rabbi Samphson Rafael Hirsch, commentary to Genesis 6:11, in The Pentateuch: vol. 1: Genesis, Judaica Press, Gateshead, England, 1989 p. 138-139 Shachet “is the conception of corruption, not destruction. It is the overthrow of a good condition, and the impeding of progress, and the changing into the opposite of anything which was meant to thrive and prosper...
