Too much edible food is going to anaerobic digestion, incineration or landfill. All of these are bad outcomes. The last two are both terrible for the environment, as they create harmful greenhouse gas emissions. And throwing away anything that could be eaten is bad for our society – especially when so many people are struggling to put food on the table.
However, new ‘Simpler Recycling’ legislation brings some hope. From 31 March, all businesses from retail to catering – except those with fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees – will be required to separate out their food waste from their general waste. This will mean more food is diverted from incineration and landfill to anaerobic digestion, where it can be turned into natural gas.
Why is The Felix Project getting excited? Well, there are a few reasons. First, the environmental benefit. When food is thrown away it harms the planet – because the resources that go into growing, transporting and packaging the food are wasted, and because if it ends up going to landfill or incineration, it will emit further harmful greenhouse gases.
ReLondon estimates the 8% of food waste sent to landfill is responsible for 65% of disposal emissions. By segregating food waste, the likelihood of food ending up in landfill is significantly reduced.
The second benefit is more food! If businesses across the food industry are forced to separate food waste, and they see edible food in that pile, they may think twice about where it goes. If a wholesaler or warehouse has unsold food that is close to its best before date, or a caterer has unused meal ingredients, or a manufacturer has rejected produce, all these unsold food examples could be donated for redistribution to people.
Rescuing edible food and prioritising it for redistribution to people is in line with Defra’s food waste hierarchy. The first priority should be to reduce waste – the second priority is to redistribute edible surplus to people.
However, our research shows this is not being followed. In fact, a more realistic visual representation looks more like the below, with just 1% of edible food waste currently being redistributed to people.
This sad reality needs to be addressed, and we hope food waste segregation will start to do this. It won’t happen overnight, and I am sure many retailers, suppliers and caterers may well struggle to cope with the new regulations. One thing that could help is reaching out to your local redistribution charity, such as The Felix Project or FareShare.
Whatever the option, I urge anyone working with food to not simply throw anything edible away with the ‘scraps’. With so many people struggling to afford food and so much harm done to our planet due to food waste, we must make sure these new regulations have the impact they should.
Richard Smith is the head of food supply at The Felix Project
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