Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what limits his Department plans to set on effluent released into waste water from commercial food waste extraction and drying systems.

Trade effluent discharges to the public sewerage network are the responsibility of the discharging party to agree consent to discharge with the local sewerage undertaker. Under s.118 of the Water Industry Act 1991, the occupier of any trade premises in the area of a sewerage undertaker may discharge any trade effluent proceeding from those premises into the undertaker’s public sewers if they do so with the undertaker’s consent. Under s.121 of the Act, the sewerage undertaker may place conditions on the consent to discharge

Disposal of food waste to landfill or into the sewer system (even if pre-treated) should only be carried out as a last resort in accordance with the food and drink waste hierarchy. Any additional food waste that is not disposed of on-site must be collected separately for recycling as per the Simpler Recycling requirements.

Defra has commissioned research into the various technologies that treat and discharge food waste to sewer to better understand their respective environmental impacts.