Asked by: Baroness Featherstone (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage local authorities who have waste contracts to renew in the next three years to introduce mandatory separate food waste collections following the recommendations of the National Infrastructure Commission's National Infrastructure Assessment 2018, published in July.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The UK government has committed to work towards no food waste being sent to landfill by 2030 in its Clean Growth Strategy, published in October 2017. 113 local authorities out of 326 in England currently offer a separate food waste collection service and we encourage all local authorities to consider introducing separate food waste collection when opportunities arise to include these in collection contracts.
In the 25 Year Environment Plan, we committed to working to support an increase in the number of councils with separate food waste collections. We will outline our plans for this in our Resources and Waste Strategy, which will be published this autumn. This will include how we will fulfil our commitments to the circular economy package where bio-waste including food waste recycling must be offered for households.
We recognise the energy generation potential of food waste, when collected separately and sent to anaerobic digestion (AD), though we need to be conscious of some of the unintended consequences for air pollution that can arise.
We will consider the recommendations of the 2018 National Infrastructure Assessment in the development of the Resources and Waste Strategy.
Asked by: Baroness Featherstone (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the figure provided in the National Infrastructure Commission's National Infrastructure Assessment 2018, published in July, that introducing mandatory separate food waste collections in England by 2025 would save (1) up to £400 million in capital costs, and (2) £1.1 billion in operational costs for local authorities in total between 2020 and 2050, including the cost of weekly collections.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The UK government has committed to work towards no food waste being sent to landfill by 2030 in its Clean Growth Strategy, published in October 2017. 113 local authorities out of 326 in England currently offer a separate food waste collection service and we encourage all local authorities to consider introducing separate food waste collection when opportunities arise to include these in collection contracts.
In the 25 Year Environment Plan, we committed to working to support an increase in the number of councils with separate food waste collections. We will outline our plans for this in our Resources and Waste Strategy, which will be published this autumn. This will include how we will fulfil our commitments to the circular economy package where bio-waste including food waste recycling must be offered for households.
We recognise the energy generation potential of food waste, when collected separately and sent to anaerobic digestion (AD), though we need to be conscious of some of the unintended consequences for air pollution that can arise.
We will consider the recommendations of the 2018 National Infrastructure Assessment in the development of the Resources and Waste Strategy.
Asked by: Baroness Featherstone (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recommendation of the National Infrastructure Commission that mandatory food waste collections should be introduced in England to support the production of biogas.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The UK government has committed to work towards no food waste being sent to landfill by 2030 in its Clean Growth Strategy, published in October 2017. 113 local authorities out of 326 in England currently offer a separate food waste collection service and we encourage all local authorities to consider introducing separate food waste collection when opportunities arise to include these in collection contracts.
In the 25 Year Environment Plan, we committed to working to support an increase in the number of councils with separate food waste collections. We will outline our plans for this in our Resources and Waste Strategy, which will be published this autumn. This will include how we will fulfil our commitments to the circular economy package where bio-waste including food waste recycling must be offered for households.
We recognise the energy generation potential of food waste, when collected separately and sent to anaerobic digestion (AD), though we need to be conscious of some of the unintended consequences for air pollution that can arise.
We will consider the recommendations of the 2018 National Infrastructure Assessment in the development of the Resources and Waste Strategy.
Asked by: Baroness Featherstone (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to establish separate mandatory food waste collections in England by 2025 as recommended by the National Infrastructure Commission in its National Infrastructure Assessment 2018, published in July; and if so, when.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The UK government has committed to work towards no food waste being sent to landfill by 2030 in its Clean Growth Strategy, published in October 2017. 113 local authorities out of 326 in England currently offer a separate food waste collection service and we encourage all local authorities to consider introducing separate food waste collection when opportunities arise to include these in collection contracts.
In the 25 Year Environment Plan, we committed to working to support an increase in the number of councils with separate food waste collections. We will outline our plans for this in our Resources and Waste Strategy, which will be published this autumn. This will include how we will fulfil our commitments to the circular economy package where bio-waste including food waste recycling must be offered for households.
We recognise the energy generation potential of food waste, when collected separately and sent to anaerobic digestion (AD), though we need to be conscious of some of the unintended consequences for air pollution that can arise.
We will consider the recommendations of the 2018 National Infrastructure Assessment in the development of the Resources and Waste Strategy.
Asked by: Baroness Featherstone (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recommendation by the National Infrastructure Commission to introduce a target of 65 per cent recycling of municipal waste by 2030.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The UK Government is committed to increasing the amount of material we recycle across both households and businesses. The UK recycling rate has increased from 41.2% in 2010 to 44.9% in 2016 but we recognise that more needs to be done.
In our Resources and Waste Strategy, due to be released this autumn, we will outline our plans to increase recycling rates. We want to make it easier for households and businesses to recycle. We also want to stimulate markets for secondary materials to ensure there is a greater incentive to recycle. We will consider the recommendations set out in the 2018 National Infrastructure Assessment on municipal waste targets when composing the Strategy.
Asked by: Baroness Featherstone (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to ensure that the UK will transpose the European Commission Circular Economy Package into UK law within the timeframe to which they have committed.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
We expect the final Circular Economy Package to be adopted shortly. The Government has confirmed that the UK will vote in favour of the final package. The Government is currently developing its approach to transposition and will set this out in the Resource and Waste Strategy later this year.