At the recent Waste-Works exhibition there were calls from Lord Deben for a law to ban retailers, businesses and households from being able to send their food waste to landfill sites. Lord Deben criticised retailers still sending food waste to landfill and hi-lighted the wasteful practices of supermarkets regulations that means food being rejected based on its appearance or size.
The government has already rejected proposals to ban food waste from landfill back in November 2014. The proposal put forward by the Environmental Audit Committee were for all councils to adopt separate household food waste collections in the hope that most of the 3.5 million tonnes of food thrown out every year by domestic properties could be recovered and used to make renewable energy , a process known as AD (anaerobic digestion).
Whilst domestic properties make up half of all food waste the restaurant sector also has a huge part to play. Winnow Solutions has developed a ‘smart meter’ which measures what is put into the bin and helps chefs change their operations and reduce food waste. Winnow Solutions have been in partnership with the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) to get their smart meter into more restaurants, so far the system has saved the equivalent of over 680,000 meals.
