Q. A person who has a lot of food, a lot of it is good and edible but it is taking up too much space and the landlord or roommate is makpid and upset, is it baal taschis to throw some of it out (some of it I can bring to a yeshiva, some of it I can store in a way that won’t bother the roommate, and some of it is not fresh though still edible). What should one do with it? He doesn’t let me store things there even though I told them it is fresh and edible. Is it OK to throw some things out that I am not interested in eating?
A. Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a opinion is that if it cannot be given away for others to use, one does not transgress the baal tashchis prohibition when thrown out, if there is a valid reason to do so, as when it affects the well being of others. (The health and reasonable well being of the owner is also a valid factor, as the Talmud teaches; ‘One’s own personal baal tashchis, preempts others’).
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as advised by Horav Shlomo Miller and Horav Aharon Miller Shlit’a