Circular Economy and Elimination of Waste

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con) [V]]

My Lords, given that prevention is better than cure and to achieve food waste elimination ambitions recommended in the CCC’s sixth carbon budget, what steps is my noble friend taking to prevent household waste, beyond awareness campaigns, and to explore novel ways in which to make reducing food waste easier for households?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend raises a really important point. The UK is fully signed up to meeting the UN sustainable development goal 12.3 target, which seeks to halve global food waste at consumer and retail level by 2030. Our resource and waste strategy committed us to better redistributing food to those in need before it gets thrown away, and we have put £15 million into that. We are consulting on mandatory food waste prevention targets for businesses and publishing a food surplus and waste hierarchy to support businesses to prevent food waste. Around 3 million tonnes of waste has been prevented since 2013 and, of that, around 2.7 million tonnes is food waste.