WRAP guidance aims to boost food waste recycling

According to the guidance published last week (August 22) Food waste messages for maximum impact how to engage your residents in prevention and collections one of the major barriers to improving food waste recycling is the lack of public awareness of the extent of food waste in the UK.

WRAP research shows that every year around 12 billion of edible food is discarded by UK households and around four million tonnes of household food waste ends up in landfill.

The guidance includes research and consumer insights based on the results from two focus groups, which were put together in 2012/13 to consider the most effective messages for encouraging food waste recycling and prevention.

Around 1,200 members of the public were involved in the research, of which 50% were found to believe both prevention and recycling of food waste were equally important and 43% believed prevention was more important that recycling.

The research also found that although introducing food waste collections has no significant net effect on food waste arisings, such collections provide an opportunity to engage with households and in many cases led to behavioural change on food waste prevention.

Saving money

According to the guidance, saving money by reducing food waste is the key hook for all audiences and is of significantly more interest than recycling information. It also recommends that councils provide tips on reducing food waste to residents, as 88% said they found tips useful.

Additionally, WRAP has published a communication tool for local authorities, including tips for promoting food waste prevention using social media and example schedules for the introduction of food waste collection services.

Local authorities looking to make use of the research in the new guidance are eligible for support from WRAP.

The WRAP guidance comes during an EU consultation on reducing food waste, which runs until October 1 (see letsrecycle.com story). In the UK, the House of Lords has also launched an enquiry into the EUs contribution to food waste prevention in a bid to tackle the estimated 89 million tonnes of food wasted in Europe each year (see letsrecycle.com story).

Earlier this month, WRAP published its 2012/13 annual report, in which it said it was confident about the future despite significant cuts in its funding from the UK government (see letsrecycle.com story).