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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the total annual cost of regular collections of food waste from (1) domestic households, (2) businesses, and (3) other organisations; and how such collection is funded in each case.

In 2019 the Government published an impact assessment to support its consultation on greater consistency in household and business recycling. In that impact assessment Government estimated that an investment in the range of £180 million - £260 million would be needed to roll out weekly separate food waste collection across households in England. These costs assume that all local authorities make no other change to collection systems and are estimated over a 7 year transition period from 2023 to 2029. This was based on what would be needed to cover additional bins, vehicles and transportation of food waste to AD sites.

Given the additional costs involved in separate food waste collection the Government has stated that it will ensure that local authorities are resourced to meet new costs arising from separate food waste collections including upfront transition costs and ongoing operational costs.

For businesses and other organisations the total annual costs for separate food waste collections were estimated to be £189 million. This estimate is based on all businesses participating in the scheme.

The costs of business food waste collections would be funded by businesses. In the impact assessment published in 2019 our preferred option of having all businesses collect dry recyclable materials (with glass separated) and separate food waste collection showed that business could make greater savings overall and we would expect estimated savings of £1,206 million from the measures proposed to increase recycling in the non-household municipal sector. For very small or micro firms our impact assessment indicated that these might see greater costs from measures to increase recycling and Government is considering options to reduce costs for this sector including possible exemptions from requirements to separately collect food waste.