"We are therefore delighted by the results of these trials, which show that if consumers are given the right tools and are provided with a good service, they will participate in initiatives to cut waste being sent to landfill"
Phillip Ward, Director for Local Government Services at WRAP
Banbury, England: Trials of separate food waste collections have proved to be a winner. The trial collections to over 94,000 households have shown high levels of public support for diverting food waste from landfill, announced Linda Crichton, ROTATE Manager at WRAP. The announcement was made at the report's official launch at the RWM conference and exhibition in Birmingham.
And the additional good news is that following these trials, some local authorities have already decided to roll out these collections on a permanent basis.
Surveys undertaken by WRAP show that 78 per cent of residents were satisfied with the collection service they received and in around half of the areas where participation monitoring was conducted, 70% of households were taking part in the service. This is a very respectable result for trials of unfamiliar collections and no doubt would have improved with time.
However participation rates in multi-occupancy dwellings were much lower with 28% the bottom of the range (28% - 74%) quoted in the report.
The collected food waste was necessarily treated using advanced techniques through either composting at in-vessel facilities or treatment by anaerobic digestion. Both of these techniques are capable of treating food waste to animal by-product regulation standards. These transpose the EU requirement for catering waste treatment at 70°C for 1 hour, with a maximum particle size of 12mm.
Food waste containers were independently issued by Cotswold District Council earlier this year. Photo: Cotswold DC
WRAP says that the trials were conducted by 19 local authorities and, with the organisation's support, provided weekly food waste collections to over 94,000 households in a range of urban and rural locations.
The WRAP organisation helps individuals, businesses and local authorities to reduce waste and recycle more, making better use of resources and helping to tackle climate change. It was established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, and is backed by government funding from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Trial fundamentals
Households were provided with a caddy for separating food waste in the kitchen, a supply of caddy liners and a container for storing food waste in prior to collection. Across the trial areas the average quantity of food waste collected at the kerbside each week was between 1.1 and 2.2 kgs per household. During the trials a total of 4,400 tonnes of food waste was diverted from landfill avoiding the emission of the equivalent of 2,000 tonnes of CO2.
Composition of food waste collections was also studied and found that ‘unavoidable’ food waste, such as peelings, cores and bones, represented the highest proportion at around 57%.
The capture rate for food waste averaged 62% across five trials audited, according to the report.
WRAPs interpretation of the results shows key findings to be:
- "The use of caddy liners, making the food collections clean and easy for residents, was an important factor in encouraging participation.
- The trials have begun to encourage changes in attitude towards food waste. A proportion of survey respondents stated that their awareness of the need to avoid food waste had increased as a result of the trial.
- Weekly food waste collections have been shown to be successful in areas where residual waste is collected either fortnightly or weekly although higher participation and yields were found with the former.
- Size of household, lifestyle and the communications strategies of different local authorities are other factors likely to affect the amount of food waste collected.
- Overall, trials in more affluent areas achieved higher yields of food waste compared to the trials in less affluent areas. This may be the result of social, environmental and housing issues which local authorities will want to consider as they develop collection schemes".
Phillip Ward, Director for Local Government Services at WRAP said:
“We throw away 6.7 million tonnes of food every year in the UK - £10 billion pounds worth - and most of that goes to landfill. Even those households that believe they aren’t producing much or any food waste are discarding on average nearly 3kg per week.
“The first priority is to try to reduce this level of waste. Through the Love Food Hate Waste campaign WRAP is working hard to raise awareness and provide practical suggestions to consumers on how they can reduce food wastage. However, at the same time, we must ensure that the food waste which is produced is diverted from landfill, so that we can avoid the production of methane and other global warming gases.
“We are therefore delighted by the results of these trials, which show that if consumers are given the right tools and are provided with a good service, they will participate in initiatives to cut waste being sent to landfill. We hope that separating their waste in this way will also encourage them to think about how they buy and manage their food in the home. WRAP will now be working with local authorities to share the knowledge gained from the trials and the successes achieved. We are also pleased that several of the authorities involved in the trials have already taken decisions to roll out food waste collections to more households”.
Further information
A copy of the Food Waste Trials Evaluation Report can be found at www.wrap.org.uk/fwct .
WRAP runs the Love Food Hate Waste Campaign to help households reduce the food waste they produce. See www.lovefoodhatewaste.com .
Food waste collection case studies from the trials can be found at:
www.wrap.org.uk/fwct.
Further information on all of WRAP's programmes can be found on www.wrap.org.uk.