Waste Reduction
Reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill is a priority for FDF. In
particular FDF's Five-Fold Environmental Ambition includes an aspiration for
FDF
members
to send zero food and packaging waste from their sites to landfill from 2015.
This reflects FDF's support for the waste hierarchy which places disposal such
as
landfill at the bottom as the least preferable option.
In July 2008 FDF and Defra published the results of the first ever survey of food and packaging waste arising at FDF members' UK production sites.
The survey's main findings were that FDF members prevented over half a million
tonnes of waste being created in 2006 by, for example, ensuring that
by-products
from food production were used in animal feed. Furthermore, of the 835,000
tonnes of food and packaging waste produced at 236 FDF member production sites
in
2006, 686,000 tonnes (82%) were recycled or recovered in some way.
With regards disposal, only 138,000 tonnes (17%) was sent directly to landfill
in 2006. This volume now forms the FDF's baseline for diverting food and
packaging waste from landfill.
To promote waste prevention, we are working closely with Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) on its new initiative to improve resource efficiency from the factory gate
throughout the food chain to final disposal. Under this, waste prevention
reviews
are being carried out at 20 FDF member sites.
Best practice case studies – supported by research and demonstration projects –
will be developed from such food chain reviews and used to raise the industy's
waste prevention performance overall.
FDF is also closely involved with FareShare, a charity that works with the food and drink industry and a nationwide network
of community based partnerships to redistribute surplus quality food to
disadvantaged people. FareShare's 2008-11 Business Plan sets out an ambitions
programme
to feed 100,000 vulnerable people each day – up from 25,000 in 2007.
FDF is helping FareShare establish more partnerships with our members, to meet
its plans for growth and ours to divert food and packaging waste from landfill.
Where waste cannot be prevented, FDF members are generally reliant upon national
waste infrastructure to divert food and packaging waste from landfill. However,
national capacity for alternatives, such as anaerobic digestion, is low and not
easily accessible by food and drink companies.
To help improve accessibility to anaerobic digestion and composting capacity,
FDF set up a joint industry and Government Waste Infrastructure Working Group.
It
successfully pooled information about existing and, where possible, new
capacity
into a single database which will be managed by NISP to help match available
capacity to food and drink industry needs.
FDF's priority is to work with National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) to promote its role as honest broker between the food and waste treatment
industries to help divert food and packaging waste from landfill.
We will work with NISP, WRAP and other partners to ensure that data on waste
treatment capacity continues to be pooled and the database is kept up-to-date.
FDF will repeat its food and packaging waste survey, to ensure that we have data
for 2007 to track progress towards our 2015 ambition.
We will continue to encourage Government to incentivise growth in the embryonic
anaerobic digestion and composting industries, in line with the policy attached
to those sectors in its 2007 Waste Strategy.
We will also press to address difficult and related issues such as planning
permission and joined up local authority approaches to municipal and commercial
waste treatment solutions which have significant potential for energy recovery.
More Information
Last reviewed: 26 Nov 2008