FOOD RECYCLING

It’s a well known fact that the British are poor (verging on shit) when it comes to recycling. Ask a Brit’ to walk a yard further to put a bottle in a glass recycling bank and we’ll chuck it in the nearest general waste bin instead.

Having said that, we’re getting better as long as it doesn’t cost a penny more than hiding it in a landfill site to rot (or not) for eternity or macerate it (in the case of food) and pour it down the sewer to avoid landfill tax.

Only by legislation making landfill the most expensive form of disposal (landfill tax £40.00 per tonne currently and increasing to over £70.00 per tonne in years to come) will we be forced to recycle by local authorities and businesses.

We’re already sorted for paper, cardboard, glass, WEEE, used cooking oil, some plastics (but we have a long way to go), batteries, metals, tyres and fluorescent tubes because it’s cheaper to recycle than to landfill.

The next phase across the UK (Eire is well ahead) is commercial food recycling. Once you’ve removed the aforementioned materials from general waste, food accounts for the bulk of the weight leaving supermarkets, universities, restaurants and the domestic collections.

It will be interesting to see which commercial organisations take up the new food recycling opportunities now whilst it’s in it’s infancy in the UK and therefore more expensive than landfill because they care, as opposed to those who simply pay lip service to the ideology but really care more for the wallet than the environment.