The organisation called on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to follow the lead of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by rolling out “long-overdue” separate food waste collections in England.
According to WRAP’s report, which was published this week (see letsrecycle.com story), the estimated household food waste per person increased by 2.2% between 2012 and 2015, with the amount of avoidable food waste increasing by 2.8%.
The estimated amount of household food waste grew from 7 million in 2012 to 7.3 million tonnes in 2015, or 75.2 kg per person per year.
WRAP attributed the increase to UK population growth, falling food prices and an increase in personal earnings, which has reduced the pressures for people to avoid wasting food.
‘Not far enough’
Charlotte Morton, chief executive at ADBA, said: “These figures show that efforts to date to reduce household food waste have had limited effect and not gone far enough.
“Not only is edible food being thrown away rather than eaten, but in many areas of England this wasted food isn’t even separately collected by local authorities, instead being sent to rot in landfill with disastrous consequences for carbon emissions.”
CONFERENCE: WRAP will be sharing some of its ideas on food waste prevention at the National Food Waste Conference in London on 23 February. For more details click here.
“We’re calling on DEFRA to finally properly enforce the waste hierarchy and to follow the examples of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by rolling out long-overdue separate food waste collections in England.
“This would make householders and businesses more aware of the amount of food they are wasting, the most effective way of reducing the amount of food waste generated in the first place, reduce the amount of food waste going to landfill and incineration, and allow more food waste to be recycled through AD into valuable green gas and biofertiliser.”
Last year, Ms Morton called for funding support for Defra to encourage councils to move to separate collection of food waste (see letsrecycle.com story).
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