Domestic Waste Recycling: Foot and Mouth Restrictions

HL Deb 24 July 2001 vol 626 cc233-4WA

Baroness Byford

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether local authority programmes for recycling domestic waste will be affected by restrictions resulting from foot and mouth disease on the spreading of compost to agricultural land. [HL477]

Lord Whitty

The Government recognise that there needs to be a balance between the need to achieve the waste strategy and recycling targets through increased composting, and the need to protect animal health. Existing controls on the disposal of catering waste containing meat have been extended as a result of foot and mouth disease and have in effect prohibited the spreading on land of compost derived from catering waste from premises which handle meat. The Government are commissioning urgently an independent risk assessment to see if these controls can be lifted and what composting standards and conditions would be required to allow them to be lifted. Other areas of recycling are unaffected.