Food: Waste Management

(asked on 24th September 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how his Department plans to fund universal food waste collections; and what steps he is taking to ensure that those collections are effectively rolled out by 2023.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 5th October 2020

This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.

Following support at consultation, we are legislating through the Environment Bill to introduce a statutory duty for waste collection authorities in England to arrange for at least weekly separate collection of food waste from households. Businesses and other organisations generating food waste will also be required to arrange for the separate collection of food waste. This must be collected for recycling or composting, including Anaerobic Digestion (AD). AD represents the best waste treatment method for unavoidable food waste due to the generation of biofuel and digestate and local authorities would be free to decide on the recycling route as a result of locally available infrastructure. We are preparing to consult on further details on this policy early in 2021.

The Government has committed to covering the costs of any additional burdens that local authorities face as a result of new statutory duties requiring them to collect food waste separately for recycling. This is in keeping with the New Burdens Doctrine which requires new burdens on local authorities to be properly assessed and fully funded, so that there will be no increase in council tax as a result of the policy.

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