PDM with its ReFood service currently recycles more than 1M tonnes of food waste annually
aim of getting the industry to collabo- rate in finding alternatives to landfill. The Vision 2020 document has been compiled to provoke debate among key stakeholders including government, local authorities, producers, packaging companies, retailers, businesses and householders.
With up to 20M tonnes of food waste dumped each year in the UK, PDM’s commercial director Philip Simpson is calling for the formation of a “vision- ary panel”. The manifesto is backed by Tory peer Lord Deben, a former envi- ronment secretary, who says: “It won’t be long before food waste is banned from landfill.
It’s certainly a policy
which I put forward in the Quality of Life report I did for David Cameron. I don’t think it is any longer justifiable to put food waste in a hole.” Key areas for debate include: ban- ning food waste from landfill as a driver to force businesses to change their practices; tax rebates for recyclers in the run-up to the ban; solutions for dealing with household waste; and greater support for planning approval for new recycling facilities.
PDM with its ReFood service cur- rently recycles more than 1M tonnes
30 Local Authority Waste & Recycling April 2011
An appetite for collaboration A
manifesto on the future of the UK’s food waste has been launched by PDM Group with the key
A leading recycler has launched a blueprint calling on the industry to work together to find better ways to deal with the nation’s food waste. Mike Gerber reports
of food waste annually, collecting in vehicles chiefly from shops, supermar- kets, hotels and restaurants across the country. This is processed in combined heat and power and anaerobic diges- tion facilities to generate renewable energy, biofuel and bio-fertiliser. But a major barrier to developing facilities, Simpson points out, is access to finance. “One of the difficulties here is, because the industry is in its infancy, finance providers are going to the extremes of requiring very secure terms and conditions. One of the terms they are looking at is a guaranteed feedstock. If the market is evolving and changing, it’s difficult to get a cus- tomer to commit long term, because there’s always a better deal round the corner in their mind.”
Simpson has floated the idea of a 10-year tax rebate scheme, operational over an extended period to give food recyclers an opportunity to develop.
“Where we are today, people are penal- ised for doing the right thing. Landfill is still too cheap,” he points out. Debra Patterson, green team chair at London’s Savoy Hotel, spoke at the launch about the hotel’s experience. The Savoy has just received the Green Business Tourism Gold award, aided by the introduction of a green partner- ship scheme which she introduced. Patterson spent a long time search- ing for a sustainable solution for the hotel’s food waste before discovering what PDM could offer.
According to her, PDM had “devel- oped a technology to turn food waste into renewable energy and that meant I had found my golden nugget”. After trials at Simpson’s in the Strand, the scheme was introduced at the Savoy when it reopened last October. “At the end of last year we collected 122,000 kg – about a tonne a week of food waste. That produced enough power generate to light the equivalent of 25% of our guest rooms.”
She adds: “By introducing this pro- gramme when we did, we’re meeting our obligations ahead of time – we’ve got 600 members of staff in the canteen and kitchen following this programme, which has been quite straightforward to introduce. I can’t understand why the other hotels aren’t following suit.”
Mike Gerber is a freelance journalist
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