The London Assembly Environment Committee (LAEC) is calling on London Mayor Boris Johnson to lobby the government to devolve the Landfill Tax to London, as part of a raft of recommendations aimed to ensure all London properties are provided with food waste collections.

The call is made in LAEC’s new ‘Bag it or bin it? Managing London’s domestic food waste’ report, released today (19 February), which recommends steps that the Mayor, local authorities and central government can take to improve the management and treatment of food waste within London to reduce the amount that goes to landfill.

‘Landfill sites could be full by 2025’

According to the report, around 20 per cent of domestic waste in London is made up of food waste, which is often sent to landfill.

LAEC warns that sending food waste to landfill not only wastes resources and money (the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) estimates that Londoners could save £79 million by reducing the amount of food waste they produce by just 14 per cent), but is also becoming increasingly impractical, as the Greater London area contains very little landfill capacity, and sites outside its boundaries that accept its municipal waste are expected to be full by 2025.

However, the report found that despite this pressure on landfill capacity, only 23 of the 33 London boroughs offer any separate food waste collections, while 16 do not offer separate food waste collections for flats. It estimates that, as a result, half of London’s households are left without the option to recycle food waste.

The report adds that although local authorities are constrained by tight budgets, separate food waste collections are ‘likely to make waste management more effective overall’ and ‘go some way towards improving an authority’s overall recycling performance’.

It concludes that one way in which the Mayor could help is by lobbying central government to devolve Landfill Tax to London, so that monies raised through the tax are returned to the local authorities, thus allowing them to invest more in food waste recycling and other sustainable waste management practices. This would mirror the devolved Landfill Tax schemes in Wales and Scotland.

The report also notes that London needs more processing capacity – as at present less than half of London’s food waste is processed in London and only one plant in London provides dedicated organic waste treatment. Further, it estimates that an extra one million tonnes of food and green waste will have to be processed to cope with London’s growing population in the near future.

As such, the report recommends that the Mayor ‘use some of his landholdings to enable – or directly provide – waste infrastructure’, such as small and commercial-scale anaerobic digestion plants.

‘Separate food waste collection schemes need not be more expensive’

Speaking after the released of the report, the Chair of the LAEC, Stephen Knight AM, said: “At 34 per cent, the capital has one of the lowest household recycling rates in England, and rates for inner London are even lower, at just 16 per cent. When we take a closer look at how London’s boroughs are performing, we are seeing a concerning lack of consistency, with 10 boroughs still not collecting any household food waste at all.

“We realise that cost is a major factor when local authorities make recycling choices, but separate food waste collection schemes need not be more expensive. Effective food waste collection will reduce the amount of waste generated in the first place, potentially making the service cost-neutral.

“If London is to maintain its status as the second most sustainable city in the world, we need to be informed about what is available to us, so we can play our part and stop wasting food.”

Speaking to Resource, Wayne Hubbard, Chief Operating Officer of LWARB, added: “This report highlights the importance that increased food waste collections can play in helping to improve London’s recycling performance. It coincides with the launch of ‘Resource London’, a partnership between LWARB and WRAP… One of Resource London’s priorities will be helping London waste authorities to improve the performance of existing food waste collections and introduce new collections where appropriate.

“I will look carefully at the report’s recommendations to see what more LWARB can do to help improve London’s food waste performance.”

Recommendations

Other recommendations made in the report include:

• all London boroughs should allocate available resources (from local government finance settlement 2015/16) to include separate food waste collections across all property types;
• the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB), in partnership with the Greater London Authority (GLA), London boroughs and WRAP, should improve data collection on food waste so that better projections of need and demand can be made, and the impact of food waste on London’s overall recycling and landfill targets can be assessed;
• annual food waste recycling statistics for local authorities should be made available on the London Data Store;
• The Mayor of London should join London Councils in its efforts to secure additional resources from government to develop separate food and organic waste collection services;
• The Mayor of London should make available, from his own resources, ongoing funding for waste reduction and recycling programmes such as WRAP or Recycle for London;
• The Mayor of London should make a long-term commitment to protect LWARB’s budget should its self-financing capabilities not be sufficiently achieved (for example, by including funding for LWARB in the GLA budget plans through to 2018/19, or by entering into contracts with LWARB for funding in return for delivery);
• London boroughs should consider introducing specific measures and incentives to increase resident participation in separate food waste recycling collections, particularly in flats and estates;
• The Mayor should work with LWARB and London Councils to introduce mechanisms for a ‘consistent, London-wide approach to communication about food waste’ by April 2016;
• The Mayor and boroughs should use their planning and housing investment powers to ‘design out waste’ in new housing developments, for example by prioritising funding for schemes that meet the highest levels of waste minimisation, and by promoting best practice for separating and recycling food waste; and
• LWARB should expand its brokerage role to promote mutual interests between London’s waste authorities and the waste industry, such as by facilitating a regular ‘forum of exchange’, providing technical expertise where needed, or assisting with developing suitable business models.

Read the full ‘Bag it or bin it? Managing London’s domestic food waste’ report.