ADBA CEO gives evidence to EFRA Committee on food waste

ADBA Chief Executive Charlotte Morton called for mandatory separate food waste collections in England yesterday afternoon at the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee's inquiry into the social, economic and environmental costs of food waste in England.

Charlotte said that it is “mind-bogglingly obvious that we should be separating out food waste and recycling it” and pointed out that a lack of mandatory separate food waste collection means that valuable resources are not being extracted from the waste stream through AD. She cited the example of Milan as an urban area that has been successful in separately collecting food waste and sending it for recycling through AD.

Charlotte also noted that cost-benefit analyses need to recognise that while waste-management authorities might bear the upfront costs of separate food-waste collections (where applicable and where not offset, for example by more infrequent residual waste collections), some of the benefits such as greenhouse-gas (GHG) abatement and renewable energy production that result from AD accrue to the UK as a whole. Charlotte quoted the World Resource Institute's figure that if food loss and waste were a country, it would be the third biggest emitter of GHG emissions behind the US and China.

Charlotte also called on the Environment Agency to enforce the waste hierarchy, pointing that that it is “their duty to do so”.

The full video of the evidence session can be viewed here on Parliament TV. You can see ADBA's written response to the inquiry here.