AQW 7941/17-22

Mr John Blair
Alliance Party
South Antrim

Tabled Date: 30/09/2020
Answered On Date: 14/10/2020
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs whether he will increase funding to local councils to help support the provision of food waste bins.

Answer:

The Food Waste Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015, introduced by DAERA, requires all local councils to provide a separate collection stream for food waste from households.

DAERA has been supporting councils since as early as 2010, initially providing funding to assist them with the introduction of a separate brown bin collection. In total, between 2010/11 and 2018/19, £5,478,991 has been provided by my Department, initially to support local councils in their preparation for the Food Waste Regulations being introduced in 2015, and thereafter to assist them in extending their food waste collections.

This funding and support has helped ensure that all local councils have now successfully introduced separate food waste collections from households, resulting in over one million tonnes of biodegradable waste being diverted from landfill between 2015 and 2019.

My Department will continue to support local councils directly, and through existing delivery partners such as Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), to deliver campaigns designed to effect positive behaviour change in relation to food waste.

As part of the discussion on Future Recycling and Separate Collection of Waste of a Household Nature in Northern Ireland, my Department is looking at ways to increase the diversion of food waste from the residual waste stream and has asked stakeholders to consider options for extending the food regulations to cover food waste collections from non-food businesses as well as considering options such as weekly separate collection of food waste from households where this is not already offered. This consultation closed on Sunday 4th October and a summary of responses will be published in due course.