FOOD & DRINK AN APPETITE FOR COMPOSTING


Huw Crampton, food waste expert at Tidy Planet, explains how on-site composting can fuel FM innovation in 2023.


Organisations across the UK are continually striving to reduce their carbon footprint and increase their sustainability – as new research has further demonstrated.


Interestingly, food waste has topped all other waste streams – including plastic and cardboard – as the material organisations are most concerned about.


The study’s findings have revealed that in order to reduce their company’s carbon footprint, 46% of the country’s businesses have ‘recycling food waste’ at the top of their priority list, and 33% have ‘reducing food waste’ in third position.


So, with this ever-increasing focus on sustainability and ‘green’ strategies, facilities management (FM) teams are responsible for supporting their clients with the reduction, and prevention, of food waste in 2023.


What does the Environment Act


mean for England’s businesses? It’s important to first set the scene, as in 2023, there are big changes on the way regarding how organisations are able to deal with their food waste.


This is outlined in the Government’s Environment Act – which comes into effect in 2023 – and will introduce mandatory separate food and general waste collections.


The Act aims to eliminate food waste from landfill by 2030, so from next year, this means three key things for organisations across both the private and public sectors:


• Food waste will need to be sent from the site as a clean, separate waste stream – either for composting or gas generation.


• Food waste will no longer be allowed to be sent to sewer by maceration or digestion.


• Food waste can’t be mixed with general or other wastes.


With FM teams being responsible for supporting their clients’ corporate responsibility strategies, they have a duty of care for all waste produced on site.


Therefore, FMs need to help their clients comply with the upcoming legislation, by implementing compliant and innovative technologies that reduce businesses’ environmental impact.


Preventing leftover food from


becoming waste is key Despite large-scale organisations, such as corporate HQs and manufacturing facilities, putting measures in place to


50 | TOMORROW’S FM


reduce their carbon footprint and waste figures in line with WRAP’s food and drink material hierarchy – many sites are actually overlooking a key solution when it comes to food waste.


Sitting at the top of the pyramid in the green section is the ‘prevention’ of waste, the ‘ideal’ category that all organisations are – and quite rightly should be –focusing their attention.


However, for wastes that are unavoidable, this sees many businesses and facilities management teams procuring items that are recyclable, crossing over from the green ‘prevention’ section into the orange one – ‘waste’.


What’s missing from the food and


drink material hierarchy? The hierarchy model seeks to minimise the impact ‘waste’ has on the environment. It ranks the various waste management approaches in order of preferability – with prevention at the top, followed by recycling, recovery, and disposal.


It’s a model that organisations have been and are continuing to apply when managing their waste streams, but there seems to be something vital missing.


Looking at WRAP’s food and drink material hierarchy, there is a clear gap between the green ‘prevention’ and the orange ‘waste’ sections.


In the context of food waste, this ‘gap’ effectively marks the point that it becomes a ‘waste’. It is when it is shipped off-site to be dealt with by a third party.


But what if the concept of ‘waste’ was never created in the first place?


FMs have the ability to significantly


reduce clients’ carbon emissions By changing the way food surplus is viewed, facilities management teams can help their clients to prevent ‘waste’ from being created – bridging the gap in the pyramid, at the same time.


By converting it into compost at the source where it is generated, it never actually becomes a ‘waste’ at all, rather a valuable ‘resource’.


This would pave the way for a new section within the hierarchy – representing on-site management of the material.


Essentially, it is only when companies’ leftover food is transported off site – to large composting or anaerobic digestion facilities – that it starts growing a large onward carbon footprint.


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