Friday 16 October 2015

New plan to tackle food waste

Waste treatment operators, local authorities, private sector waste collectors and industry bodies are to develop a plan to tackle food waste.

The initiative led by Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) aims to identify tangible, industry-led actions to maximise the amount of household and commercial food waste collected and recycled in England.

Despite the UK’s best efforts to minimise food waste, seven million tonnes are still wasted every year by households, stated WRAP.

It added increasing the volume of food waste recycled could provide a huge boost and help the UK deliver on meeting the EU target of 50% recycling by 2020.

Marcus Gover, Director at WRAP said: "At present, just over 10% of household food waste is captured and recycled. This means that the majority is still ending up in the residual waste stream, which is a costly loss for local authorities and a missed opportunity for food waste recyclers.

"Keeping it out of landfill and channelling it into recycling is an urgent priority which is why we need the whole sector to work together - and this is exactly what the new action plan is designed to achieve."