Waste not want not – one person’s waste is another person’s treasure

It’s estimated that around 7 million tonnes of food are wasted across the UK homes each year, with just over 3 million tonnes being generated from the hospitality, manufacturing, retail and wholesale sectors.

To put that in perspective, the Great Pyramid of Giza is estimated to weigh 5.9 million tonnes. Once you start to bring in waste from offices and the workplace (which unfortunately there aren’t any current estimates), it’s clear to see the scale of the problem.

A key issue with food waste is its greenhouse gas impact. When sent to landfill, it produces methane which has a far greater potency that carbon dioxide in terms of its impact as a greenhouse gas (some 25 times greater.). Any food waste collected as part of a local kerbside collection is sent to an anaerobic digester to generate energy.

It’s believed that one person’s food waste is enough to produce enough energy to power a fridge for 2 months or charge a smart phone 2,000 times.

Scaled up across the country the potential energy generation is huge. Therefore, making sure food waste avoids going to landfill in the first place is key and many businesses aren’t aware of what local waste disposal facilities are available to them. Having conversations with waste collection companies in your area can help solve this and can potentially reduce your waste disposal costs by thousands.

The problem with energy generation from food waste is that it’s a very linear solution and doesn’t solve the problem of actually reducing waste levels. With environmental issues and sustainability currently being at the forefront of business decisions within the sector, food waste from businesses has never been such a hot topic.

The Food and Drink Federation recently published its latest annual progress report showing that since 2011, food and drink manufacturing businesses have managed to reduce their food waste by 30%, with a 13.4% decrease across the supply chain over the same period. Whilst this is a very positive step in the right direction, there is still quite a way to go to achieve its targets.

Although there are potential actions being led by industry standards to try and reduce food waste, e.g. the potential extension of use-by dates by the Food Standard Agency (FSA), much of the responsibility and costs are falling on businesses themselves.

However, where there’s waste there’s also opportunity.

Some big industry players have managed to find ways of utilising their waste to become an income source. Kellogg’s have partnered with a brewery in Manchester who have helped up-cycle the grains and flakes they’re unable to use and turn it into beer. 

Another example is from Tate & Lyle Sugars who have found a use for the 11,000 tonnes of calcium carbonate (CCC) they produce each year from their refining processes. Partnering with a brick manufacturer, they have found that CCC is a much more sustainable and efficient material within the brick manufacturing process without affecting quality and avoids using a mined, finite material. 

Both these examples undoubtedly demonstrate a key R&D opportunity for businesses, with collaboration often being vital.

Consumer expectations on sustainability are ever increasing and being able to demonstrate such levels of waste reduction and collaboration can only be a great marketing and PR opportunity.

What is clear is that businesses should keep ‘panning’ their waste to try and unlock its potential because there’s significant treasure to be had.