The concerns were voiced at a London conference on the implications of a risk assessment into the use of catering wastes for compost production.
The risk assessment by Dr Paul Gale, senior microbiologist at WRc-NRF, follows concerns that meat waste could end up in material for composting which is collected from caterers.
Dr Gale recommends a “two-barrier” composting system for catering waste followed by a two-month ban on grazing on land to which it is applied. However, in a presentation to the conference he stressed that the effects of a “by-pass” – when untreated meat is eaten by an animal – could be “devastating”. “If just 0.001% meat was fed directly to animals, it would pose a greater risk than for everybody composting taken together,” he warned.
Waste of time
Referring to Dr Gale’s speech, Dr Judith Thornton, sanitation officer at the Centre for Alternative Technology, challenged speakers from DEFRA to justify the requirements of EU and planned UK legislation: “As far as I can tell from the risk assessment, it seems that regulation of composting is a complete waste of time unless you do something about by-pass,” she said. “It’s counter productive, this set of regulations. Making composting difficult is going to make people do illegal things and by-passing is by far the greatest risk.”
Another delegate voiced a question on many attendees’ lips when he asked what the government planned to do about meat by-products that went untreated to landfill sites.
The panel of compost specialists were unable to give a specific answer but Dr Wyllie said that compost, which may be spread on agricultural land, was nevertheless worthy of attention. However, an attendee from a waste management company remarked later to letsrecycle.com: “How many seagulls do you see hovering around an average landfill site, and how many do you see around compost sites?”
There are fears amongst industry experts that composting, which was once thought of as a relatively easy and inexpensive way of meeting recycling targets may soon require expensive high-tech equipment. There was some speculation at the event, which was organised by the Composting Association, that the added costs of in-house composting may lead operators to simply refuse catering waste altogether.
Flexible system
Dr Mandy Bailey, head of DEFRA’s BSE division, responded to complaints of unfairness, saying: “We have no alternative but to undertake some regulation regarding composting as the EU regulations will come into force anyway. We are trying to develop a system that will be as flexible and easy to apply as possible.”
And she said DEFRA fully supported the composting industry: “We are not here to try and ban composting. The risk assessment has shown the risk of spreading animal disease through this waste is sufficiently small to promote the use of catering waste in composting under suitable controls.”
In response to Dr Thornton’s question, Dr Gale responded that the risk of by-pass did not mean that catering wastes should not be composted at all. “The implementation of controls should focus on reducing by-pass,” he said. “If a couple of tonnes per year is spread on land and eaten by pigs, there is no point in composting catering waste.”
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