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Work with the Environmental Agency (EA) to enforce The Food Waste Hierarchy

A cross-party House of Commons report urges the Government to “work with the Environmental Agency (EA) to enforce The Food Waste Hierarchy”, which was enacted into UK law in 2011.

The report, Food Waste in England, was published by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in April 2017 and sets out a series of recommendations to increase enforcement of the law. In addition, a follow-up public meeting was convened in the House of Lords on July 3, 2017 to outline Next Steps for Parliament.

The Hierarchy requires food waste producers to reduce their production of waste, and where possible, redistribute surplus food. As a third step, the hierarchy sets forth the requirement to recycle, with anaerobic digestion as the preferred solution. Recycling must be considered before any food waste is sent to landfill, incineration or disposed of via drains.

Committee chairman, Neil Parish, says that, environmentally, food waste that ends up rotting in landfill is “a disaster", because it produces methane – “a potent climate-changing gas".

Once the EA undertakes greater enforcement, food waste producers will need to follow The Hierarchy, or make the difficult case that their food waste management approach is environmentally superior to that stipulated. 

There were eight further Key Recommendations, all in support of the principle objective of ensuring that The Food Waste Hierarchy is made to work.

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