DEFRA secures delay on Animal By-Products implementation

The EU Regulation includes tough rules on the processing, transportation and disposal of wastes that include meat. It comes into force across the EU today (May 1), but will not be introduced in England until the government's Statutory Instrument is produced at the end of this month. However, businesses operating a number of processes have been given extended deadlines to comply.

Waste

Of greatest relevance to the waste industry is the extension of the deadline for rules covering the collection and disposal of certain types of food from food manufacturers and retailers until December 31, 2005.

The Regulation will push up the cost of waste treatment for many retailers and food manufacturers. While some waste, such as raw meat from butchers' shops and manufacturing, must be disposed of by incineration or some form of rendering, others can be processed by tightly regulated composting or biogas plants.

SITA recently appointed a sales manager for the food and beverage sector, James Pike. Mr Pike said the majority of his customers in the food sector were finding the Regulation a problem because it would push up their waste disposal costs.

He explained: “We see this as an opportunity to advise our current customers on new technological ways of handling waste. We are developing our own in-house solutions in terms of composting facilities and strengthening our relationships with third parties such as rendering industry. We are looking at a partnership with the rendering industry in order to provide the lowest cost solution.”

Food

There are three main types of food waste:

• Raw meat waste from butchers or food manufacturers. The disposal of this is already tightly controlled, and producers will be expected to comply with the new Regulation when the Statutory Instrument is brought in at the end of May.
• Catering waste, defined as food waste from shops, restaurants, catering facilities and household kitchens, which prepare food on the premises for immediate consumption. The Regulation does not apply to catering waste, and accordingly it can still go to landfill. The exception is if the material is intended either for animal consumption or destined for use in composting, in which case it is governed by certain parts of the Regulation.
• Cooked meat from food manufacturing and food from retailers which has not been prepared on the premises. This is the category covered by DEFRA's transitional agreement. The deadline was extended because many businesses in this category have not previously needed to separate animal by-product waste, and it was thought that they would have difficulty complying immediately.

Andrew Ainsworth, senior policy executive of the Environmental Services Association commented: “We would expect the government to encourage waste producers to comply with the European Regulation as quickly as possible rather than waiting until the end of the transitional period.”