Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to support local authorities in collecting food waste to send to to anaerobic digestion facilities.

The Government has brought forward up to £295 million in capital funding to roll out weekly food waste collections across England. This will cover the reasonable new burdens costs of additional bins and vehicles. Initial grants have now been issued to local authorities for their transitional capital funding allocation for the 2023/24 financial year (FY). Transitional resource costs will be paid from FY 2024/25. Ongoing resource costs will be paid to all local authorities from 1 April 2026.

We have committed to work with sector specialists the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to develop guidance and good practice on communications and scope additional areas of support for local authorities and other affected stakeholders. WRAP has recently published standard specifications developed with industry to support local authorities in the procurement of vehicles and containers.

Local authority disposal of food waste is also being supported through the construction of new anaerobic digestion (AD) plants facilitated by the Government’s Green Gas Support Scheme, which provides a tariff supporting the price of biomethane injected into the gas grid at AD sites.