To receive a presentation by the Service Manager – Waste & Recycling.
Decision:
RESOLVED:
(1) That the Service Manager – Waste be thanked for her informative presentation.
(2) That the Cabinet Panel on the Environment is supportive of anaerobic digestion options beings pursued and that the Executive Member for Recycling and Waste Management be requested to discuss the Panel’s view with the Leader of the Council and convey this view when the contract is up for tender.
REASON FOR DECISION: To enable the Cabinet Panel on the Environment to consider the issues around reduction of food waste.
Minutes:
Audio Recording – 7 minutes 10 seconds.
The Service Manager – Waste & Recycling gave a presentation and highlighted the following:
· Food production produced around 30% of global greenhouse gasses each year;
· The UK was a comparably wasteful society with regards to food;
· 4.5 million tonnes of food considered edible was wasted every year in the UK;
· Meal planning, appropriate food purchasing, and portion sizing were relevant to everybody in reducing the amount of edible food in the waste stream;
· Other actions such as home-grown veg, composting, zero waste cooking, and keeping domestic livestock were also relevant to reducing food waste;
· The World Wildlife Fund estimated that 11% of global greenhouse gases could be reduced by reducing food waste;
· Food waste reduction was not just a question of food waste recycling, which NHDC does offer, but a wider issue of reducing wasted food overall;
· In 2019/20 North Herts residents recycled 1.61kg of food waste per household per week;
· This figure was good and compared reasonably well with other neighbouring authorities;
· This information combined with waste composition analysis suggests North Herts residents were producing more like 2.79kg of food waste per household per week;
· Under 58% of food waste was being captured by the food waste recycling scheme;
· Capturing more of extant waste and reducing waste overall were both important goals;
· About 81% of the food waste in the residual waste stream was considered edible;
· There was significant scope for improvement in the district on these figures and changing resident behaviour and tackling consumer food waste was part of that goal;
· 23% of residual household waste (purple bin) was food waste;
· Around 17% of the residual household waste stream was dry recycling;
· A further 17% of the same stream was plastics not currently recyclable under the scheme;
· Food waste recycling was back to pre-COVID pandemic levels;
· The Council was not recycling a higher percentage of food waste than it was pre-COVID despite increased waste levels and more home working;
· There was 1.5 thousand tonnes (around 25kg per household) more residual waste produced in the last 4 months compared to the same period last year;
· The main work of the Waste Services team was on prevention, promotion and participation;
· The tonnage of food waste collected over the October pumpkin carving season had not increased;
· Love Food Hate Waste was the main campaign that the Council promoted in order to reduce food waste;
· The Council’s ability to promote campaigns to residents was limited;
· There was always a double-page spread on Waste & Recycling in Insight, the Council’s magazine; over summer it was focussed on food waste;
· The reach of the Council’s social media accounts was not broad and could be improved;
· A part time officer post has been created which will promote waste reduction initiatives;
· Waste service participation in North Herts was low according to waste collection crew reports; around 8,000 households regularly fail to put out their food waste bin;
· Service mobilisation issues at the start of the service disincentivized uptake;
· 6.68kg per household per year in food waste was captured from households participating in the scheme;
The following Members asked questions:
· Cllr Claire Strong
· Cllr Michael Muir
· Cllr Val Bryant
· Cllr Gerald Morris
In response to questions the Service Manager – Waste & Recycling advised:
· Residents using their food waste caddies were more likely to be thinking about food waste reduction;
· Information on the breakdown of edible vs inedible waste in food waste caddies was not available;
· The waste disposal authority was Herts County Council and when the contracts for disposal were let for tender the biogen facility in Baldock was not yet built;
· At last update the biogen facility was at capacity and we rely on them bidding for contracts with the County Council;
· The Herts Waste Partnership produced an annual report every year which includes information on end-destination; 86% of all waste from Herts was processed in the UK.
In response to questions the Executive Member for Recycling & Waste Management advised:
· The school outreach programme was in place but had taken a back-seat in light of ongoing pandemic difficulties and the challenges facing schools.
At the invitation of the Chair, Emma Goulding from Food Rescue Hub noted:
· There were a plethora of reasons that food ends up in a food waste caddy that were avoidable and connected to education;
· Educating children on food waste issues had limited effectiveness considering the control of family budget and shopping decisions;
The Chair noted that reducing the carbon impact of food relied on reducing waste or directing it to anaerobic digestion processing.
RESOLVED:
(1) That the Service Manager – Waste be thanked for her informative presentation.
(2) That the Cabinet Panel on the Environment is supportive of anaerobic digestion options beings pursued and that the Executive Member for Recycling and Waste Management be requested to discuss the Panel’s view with the Leader of the Council and convey this view when the contract is up for tender;
REASON FOR DECISION: To enable the Cabinet Panel on the Environment to consider the issues around reduction of food waste.