The new duty, a part of the Food Waste Regulations (Northern Ireland) applies to those involved in the processing, distribution, preparation, or sale of food and who regularly produce more than 50kg of food waste per week.
Businesses affected by the new legislation include shops and pubs serving food, restaurants and cafes, food courts, hotels, supermarkets, schools, prisons and nursing homes.
Exempt from the new rules are those producing less than 5kg of food waste per week and those dealing with catering waste from international transport.
Smaller producers and Health and Social Care trusts who regularly produce between 5kg and 50kg of food waste per week must also comply with the new rules by 1 April 2017.
Scotland waste laws
Mirroring similar law changes brought into effect in Scotland in 2014, it is hoped that compulsory measures to force companies to present food waste separately for collection will stimulate the food waste treatment industry in the country.
Following the introduction of the regulations in Scotland, Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant operators claimed that tonnages of food waste collected for treatment had increased by around 10-20% (see letsrecycle.com story).
Incentive
Shane Doherty, performance manager at Granville Ecopark Limited, which specialises in Anaerobic Digestion said: “This new legislation will help get it out the black bin and into facilities like this – before businesses had no incentive to have a food waste bin so it would have gone to landfill.
“It is going to really help increase the volume of food waste from being diverted from landfill to facilities such as ours where we can then recreate renewable electricity from that food waste.”
Consequently, a concern with this new duty is whether Northern Ireland can cope with the increase in food waste.
Mr Doherty added: “It’s a question of how much food waste is out there. One of the main barriers to collecting food waste was getting it clean enough to treat.
“Our company is best set up to treat that food waste because we have an ability to treat package waste.”
Businesses are to face another new duty from 1 April 2017 ensuring that food waste is not deposited in a lateral drain or sewer.
Landfilling separately collected food waste is already prohibited in Northern Ireland and became effective from 1 April 2015 (see letsrecycle.com story).
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