Circular Online’s Peter Dennis tries to find out who is really responsible for food waste. Is it producers, consumers or government? Or is it everyone’s problem?
To coincide with WRAP’s third annual food waste action week campaign, Circular Online is asking what is the solution to food waste.
2.5 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year across the world – around 9.5 million tonnes are thrown away in the UK. This scale of food waste is not only bad for the environment – food waste would be the third highest emitting country of greenhouse gases – but bad for people’s wallets as well.
The leftover roast potatoes on your plate; the peppers that go off in your fridge before you have time to cook them; all the food that restaurants throw away at the end of service; why does this waste stream keep increasing?
Unfortunately, food waste is a growing problem that doesn’t look to be slowing down. So, who is responsible: producers or consumers? And what is the solution?
Producer vs consumer responsibility
The Greater Lincolnshire Food Partnership is a collection of organisations in Greater Lincolnshire working together for “greener, fairer, healthier” food for all through sustainable local action. The Partnership describes itself as a local response to a “global crisis”.
In 2021, the Food Partnership brought together a consortium of food banks and community larders across Lincolnshire.
Greater Lincolnshire Food Partnership coordinator Laura Stratford told Circular Online: “The Food Partnership brought together a consortium of food banks and organisations addressing poverty through food, and worked with the Lincoln Community Foundation, the Lincolnshire Co-op and Fareshare to establish a food hub and distribution system in Lincolnshire.
“This enables surplus food to be redirected away from landfill, and distributed to food banks, community larders, food coops, membership supermarkets, low-cost cafes and other organisations across the county with the help of volunteers.”
“Taking a Food Partnership perspective on food makes it obvious that we need to go upstream to address big problems like waste.”
Stratford argues that everyone has a responsibility for food waste, but we’re not going to win by “lecturing individuals on wasting food” when, in her opinion, the supermarket model is predicated on farmers overproducing and customers over-purchasing.
Taking a Food Partnership perspective on food makes it obvious that we need to go upstream to address big problems like waste.
However, according to WRAP’s Food waste trends survey 2021, 70% of the UK’s food waste comes from households, which the organisation says is equivalent to £14 billion in value a year and 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
So, with the majority of food waste coming from households, what’s the cause? Do producers still bear some responsibility? One way supermarkets are trying to combat household food waste is by removing “best-before” dates from fresh food products.
Aldi, Asda, Co-op, M&S, Sainsbury’s and Tesco have all ditched best-before dates on certain products over the last few years. WRAP has been encouraging the removal of these dates for some time – in August 2022, WRAP CEO Marcus Gover called on retailers to remove best-before-date labels on fresh fruit and veg.
This aims to drive behaviour change; however, some argue that retailer practices are still responsible for household food waste, even if it is indirectly. The way food is marketed, policies towards suppliers and food packaging all play a role in the amount of food that goes to waste in households every year.
Stratford is calling for a “more holistic approach”. She argues we need to apply the polluter pays principle because the real cost of food includes the environmental and social impact it has, including the cost of waste.
Stratford says we need short, responsive supply chains that favour local, sustainable food, and fresh food grown in the peri-urban area.
The UK will see the polluter pays principle implemented for packaging when extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation comes into play. However, while this policy looks upstream at the producers of food waste, it’s likely to push the burden of cost increases onto consumers.
As well as adopting the polluter pays principles, Stratford says we also need farming policy and economic incentives that favour agroecological producers, based on circular systems, that produce minimal waste.
Setting out further plans, Stratford says we need “short, responsive supply chains that favour local, sustainable food, and fresh food grown in the peri-urban area;
“planning policy that prioritises independent retail, that is not predicated on the wasteful pile it high, sell its cheap model; retail, catering and hospitality services that are responsive to seasonality and supply, instead of propagating the myth that all food is equally available year round.”
Stratford says surplus food distribution by volunteers through food banks is not a long-term solution to food waste or food poverty. Instead, it is “symptomatic of a terribly broken system”.
The role of local authorities
While reducing food waste should be the ultimate goal, when it does occur, that doesn’t mean food waste has to end up in landfill, which is the least preferable option for it according to the waste hierarchy.
For example, food waste could be turned into energy through anaerobic digestion. Reuse isn’t just for other waste streams. However, where household food waste can’t be reduced, it needs to be disposed of correctly so it can be reused.
Unfortunately, even if every household was passionate enough to diligently dispose of their food waste properly for energy recovery, they might not be able to currently access food waste collections in England varies across local authorities (LA) – although it’s likely separate food waste collections will be made mandatory across English councils as part of the government’s waste policy reforms.
Circular Online asked the Chair of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC), Cathy Cook, how important consistent collections are when trying to tackle the food waste problem.
“Currently, LAs in England have the option over whether to provide a separate food waste collection, which as a result means that those residents that don’t have access to a collection (and who don’t home compost) have no option but to place their food waste into their residual bin (or into their mixed organics bin if they have a mixed food and garden collection).
The introduction of consistent collections will provide the requirement for LAs currently without a separate food waste collection to put one into place.
“The introduction of consistent collections will provide the requirement for LAs currently without a separate food waste collection to put one into place, thus providing residents with a method for the collection and recycling of thousands of tonnes of more food waste, which will go some way to addressing the issue of food waste going to final disposal.”
We followed up with Cook to ask if consistent collections could cause problems with LAs’ collection contracts. She said this will depend on individual LAs as they will all have their own specific arrangements.
“Each LA which currently doesn’t provide a separate food waste collection will need to start engaging (if they have one) with their external collection contractor, their waste disposal authority and their energy from waste plant, in order to make any necessary changes.”
Cook also cited behaviour change as very important when looking at ways to tackle food waste. She said that residents “need to recognise” the implications of producing too much waste and of not recycling this waste.
She continued that local authorities must have reliable, easy-to-use systems in place for residents to present their food waste; however, without the associated communications and “behaviour change activities” alongside this, many residents may still not engage, Cook warns.
Studies have shown that residents are more likely to use the system if certain aspects are in place.
“Studies have shown that residents are more likely to use the system if certain aspects are in place, such as the provision of liners and, for communal collections, housing units which contain the food waste bin.
“Both of these help to address the concept of collections being ‘dirty’ and thus making it more likely for residents to engage. ‘No Food Waste’ stickers placed onto the residual bins have also been proven to have a positive impact.”
Who is responsible for food waste?
Eliminating any waste stream, if it’s even possible, will of course require multiple solutions – it will require a variety of actions implemented in tandem, both upstream at the producer and supply chain levels and downstream to tackle household waste and beyond. Food waste is no different.
What those solutions are, is still up for debate. Ultimately, the responsibility for food waste doesn’t fall on either producers or consumers, it falls on both of them. However, a portion of responsibility, of course, should also be on the government.
Government has the power to implement policy to help reduce this waste stream, whether this proves to be EPR for food waste, implementing financial disincentives or, where food waste is unavoidable, mandating separate collections for food waste collections across LAs so that it doesn’t just end up in landfill.
Whatever the solution is, it will require collaboration across industry, government and households.
