Wardell Armstrong’s Luke Prazsky says excluding a requirement for mandatory household food waste collections for financial reasons is “short-sighted”, and asks if household food waste is the key to changing the public’s opinion of seeing waste as a resource?
In preparing their much-anticipated Resources and Waste Strategy, Defra is considering excluding a requirement for mandatory household food waste collections. The only reason being given for this is a financial one which is a bit short-sighted and doesn’t even attempt to encourage us to innovate.
That old proverb “Necessity is the mother of invention” stands true and nothing will happen until councils are forced to change.
The Renewable Energy Association even suggested back in 2016 that collecting food waste does not have to increase the overall cost of providing a waste collection service, when all costs are factored in.
Financial arguments aside, this decision would miss an amazing generational opportunity to really turn people’s perception of waste into one of a resource. We don’t get these opportunities every day and Defra should be considering the bigger picture and embrace opportunities to deliver real change that will benefit society.
Anaerobic digestion (AD) has to be a better solution for this waste stream with rotten food converted into a useful soil improver and gas which can be cleaned for direct supply to gas users or be used to generate electricity.
The general public worry to what extent their kerbside recycling efforts remain in the materials supply chain. They want to know that the materials they separate get recycled. Press articles regarding recyclate ending up in landfill or being exported to the Far East, as reported in the national press, do nothing but switch people off. This disincentivises them and they see waste just as something that needs to be got rid of rather than making them enthused at the thought of renewable energy coming from their leftovers.
But let’s not kid ourselves that mandatory collections would have to come with anything other than a really big promotional/educational push. Let’s not underestimate the challenge of enabling householders to participate in their local scheme and avoiding unnecessary contamination.
But let’s not kid ourselves that mandatory collections would have to come with anything other than a really big promotional/educational push. Let’s not underestimate the challenge of enabling householders to participate in their local scheme and avoiding unnecessary contamination.
We should continue to encourage less food waste in the first place but there will always be a certain proportion that cannot be eaten. If householders saw that the food waste collected from every household was being converted to green energy, they might just see it differently. Imagine if the public start to see waste food as a fuel or a resource and start to apply the same mindset to the other ‘resource’ streams.
An increased volume of food wastes in the market place could well trigger growth in the number of AD facilities and a corresponding rise in renewable energy production reinforcing the gains further.
Food wastes contaminate potentially recyclable material streams which currently find themselves in the residual waste bin. If recovered, these are then just too contaminated for the market. If food waste was collected separately, then maybe it would even boost recycling of other materials, which would be cleaner and drier and therefore better suited to reprocessing.
There are several environmental benefits from food waste collections that are then recycled at anaerobic digestions plants:
- Increased renewable energy production
- A corresponding reduction in the use of fossil fuel derived energy
- Decreased used of artificial fertilizer through use of nutrient rich digestate
- Less residual waste going to landfill
- Potential for increased recyclate capture from the residual waste stream
- A drier residual waste stream, with improved calorific value if sent for energy recovery
- Improved energy efficiency at energy recovery facilities
The Government’s Clean Growth Strategy last year committed the UK to phasing out the landfilling of food waste by 2030. This is nothing new – the Landfill Directive set target reductions for the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill. These measures alone will only deliver the diversion of food wastes from landfill to the proliferation of energy recovery facilities that have appeared across the UK in recent years.
The few councils that collect food waste separately need national support to make their schemes realise their potential or even continue at all. If it is in the national conscience, then we stand a better chance of overcoming local apathy and seeing the benefits of reduced greenhouse emissions, increased recycling and greater energy security being realised.
