AQW 21234/17-22

Mr John Blair
Alliance Party
South Antrim

Tabled Date: 30/06/2021
Answered On Date: 16/07/2021
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to outline his Department’s plans to promote the recycling of organic wastes as a method to help tackle methane emissions.

Answer:

Food waste has a number of issues – the resources that have gone into making it are used unnecessarily, and, if we don’t recycle our biodegradable waste, then it produces harmful greenhouse gases. I am committed to tackling the problem of biodegradable waste and my Department are currently progressing and supporting a range of initiatives to help achieve this.

The introduction of the Food Waste Regulations in 2015, which placed a duty on councils to separately collect biodegradable waste for recycling, means that Northern Ireland now has one of the most comprehensive biodegradable waste collection services in the world. Since the introduction of the Food Waste Regulations, almost 1.3 million tons of biodegradable waste has been diverted from landfill and despite a downturn in recycling rates due to the pandemic, biodegradable waste recycling has remained largely stable.

My Department continues to provide input and support to a number of regional and national behaviour change and awareness raising campaigns to reduce food waste and ensure that we deal with food waste correctly when it occurs. Funding from DAERA facilitated the roll out of the Food Waste Action Week campaign in Northern Ireland, which proved a huge success this year, engaging the public with practical ways to prevent food waste while also making the connection between food waste and climate change. Officials are also collaborating with colleagues across the UK nations in our work for COP26, while the UK is on target to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 – a 50% per capita reduction in global food waste by 2030.

DAERA continue to work with the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to increase uptake of their voluntary agreements within NI. Courtauld 2025 (C2025) and the Food Waste Reduction Roadmap (FWRR) both encourage signatories to use the ‘Target, Measure, Act’ approach to reducing surplus and losses within their operations. There are currently 25 businesses based in Northern Ireland signed up to the FWRR, with 19 of these also being signatories to C2025.

My Department supports FareShare NI, a charity redistributing surplus food in Northern Ireland. Increasing redistribution is a significant, but relatively easy and cost effective action that can be taken to address food losses and surplus within the supply chain and divert food waste from landfill.

Finally, I am committed to ensuring as much biodegradable waste as possible stays out of landfill and is recycled. With that in mind, I have placed a renewed focus on biodegradable waste by ensuring it will be included as part of my Department’s Green Growth Strategy which aims to protect our environment, whilst growing a sustainable and resilient economy for Northern Ireland.