Mandatory reporting of food waste could be introduced for businesses if they fail to address the issue, Defra’s food surplus and waste champion told an event in Westminster this week (16 July).
Ben Elliot – who advises the government on food waste – was speaking at a seminar addressing food waste reduction and new initiatives for reducing plastic packaging.
Ben Elliot, Defra’s food surplus and waste champion, speaking at an event in June this year
He said the government could legislate on surplus food reporting if progress was not seen in the next two to three years.
“One of the main challenges is the lack of transparency around food surplus and food waste,” said Mr Eliot, explaining that he would like to see greater awareness of which companies are performing well helping customers to make informed decisions.
He added: “I would love to hear that people are saying ‘no, I won’t eat at x, y or z because they don’t redistribute their surplus food.’”
Deposit Return Scheme
With Environment Secretary Michael Gove’s suggestion today (16 July) that the government will move forward with an “all-in” deposit return scheme (DRS) for drinks packaging, there was debate about the benefits of DRS and alternatives such as Extended Producer Responsibility.
Andrew Bird, head of recycling and fleet services at Newcastle-under-Lyme borough council and member of the LARAC executive, warned that local authorities would be hit hard by the introduction of DRS.
“DRS will remove valuable materials from existing and well-established systems,” he said. “Recycling rates would fall by about 7% across our authorities and all in all a DRS system will cost local authorities.”
He claimed that on average £100,000 to £150,000 could be lost by each council in lost revenue.
Marcel Arsand, sustainability manager for the UK and Nordics at Ball Beverage Packaging Europe, suggested that a DRS must cover a wide range of materials – and if items were not included they should to be part of an EPR scheme instead.
Mr Gove has implied that Defra’s DRS is likely to include all PET plastic drinks bottles, aluminium and steel cans and glass bottles (see letsrecycle.com story).
To be successful a DRS also needs to avoid a fixed price for all containers to avoid distorting the market for high quality materials such as aluminium cans, said Mr Arsand. He said the most successful schemes, such as those in many Nordic countries, had lower deposits for small PET bottles and cans and higher desposits for large bottles.
Plastic
The event also saw discussions on the growing consumer cynicism towards plastic.
Concerns were raised by Dr David Moon of WRAP at the beginning of the session who insisted that “we do not want to tackle plastic packaging at the cost of creating more food waste”.
Many attendees raised concerns that the public, fuelled by media coverage, were so concerned about plastic waste that they were not considering the ways in which plastic can lengthen shelf life and prevent food ending up in the bin.
Suzanne Westlake, head of corporate responsibility and corporate affairs at Ocado, claimed that the online supermarket’s customers wanted to see zero plastic, no matter its purpose.
“We have been trying to educate – where there is plastic that serves a purpose we have tried to communicate that.”
Ms Westlake said: “The attitude and the feeling is bordering on militant.
“We have been trying to educate – where there is plastic that serves a purpose we have tried to communicate that.”
The seminar was opened by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch, shadow spokesperson for environment, food and rural affairs. There were also contributions from Dr Adam Read of Suez, Julie Poirot of the French embassy in London, Mark Richmond of WRM and Jamie Crummie of Too Good To Go, amongst others.
The event took place at the TUC Congress Centre in central London.
The post Businesses may face mandatory food waste reporting appeared first on letsrecycle.com.
Source: letsrecycle.com Plastic
