Mandatory measures to force councils to provide for separate collections of food waste appear to have been ruled out by Resources Minister Dr Therese Coffey.
Giving evidence at the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee hearing into food waste, Dr Coffey said: ''One of the things I have been interested in doing, of course, yesterday’s events [the announcement of an early General Election] bring it somewhat to a pause at the moment, is to do more to encourage councils to be more proactive in their approaches to how they undertake recycling initiatives. WRAP [Waste & Resources Action Programme] is doing ongoing work with our officials on elements of that. I do not think we are at the stage at which we need to be considering mandatory approaches. There are certain rules already in place about separate collections and so on. To go to one extreme, where a household is required to have seven or eight bins, is in my view not appropriate. It feels like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.''
She also emphasised the importance of voluntary measures to encourage businesses to reduce food waste and report on their progress in doing so.
Dr Coffey also discussed that she was keen to see improvements across major cities in terms of their recycling rates. She acknowledged that retailers have an important role to play in reducing consumer food waste but further regulation would not be an effective way to encourage them. Instead, existing voluntary arrangements like the Courtauld Commitment which sets a voluntary target to reduce food waste from the grocery supply chain by 20% by 2025, would continue.
The hearing also questioned Dr Coffey as to whether the government would consider the possibility of introducing legislation which requires all businesses of a certain size to have a policy in place to redistribute food, a policy already adopted in France.
She commented: ''Like for like, in terms of population and the size of the food industry, we have redistribution on a comparable level, I’m not saying in exact terms of volume, because the food industry in France is a lot bigger than the equivalent in the UK. I think we are already achieving similar outcomes without the need for further regulation.''
