Food Waste (Hansard, 6 November 2002)

§ Mr. Lidington
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the volume of food waste previously sold to swill feeders which goes to landfill. [77318]

§ Margaret Beckett
The Animal By-products Order 1999 was amended on 24 May 2001 to introduce a ban on the use of catering waste in swill feeding. It is estimated that approximately 80,000 tonnes per annum of catering waste was being sold to swill feeders at the time the ban came into effect. Following a risk assessment, my Department hopes to consult shortly on amendments to the Order which would allow catering waste to be composted and used on land as a soil conditioner rather than going to landfill.
367W

§ Mr. Lidington
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what her policy is on the development of alternatives to landfill for the disposal of catering food waste; [77230]
(2) what assessment she has made of the risks to (a) human and (b) animal health of disposing untreated catering food waste in landfill. [77317]

§ Margaret Beckett
In June, my Department issued the results of a risk assessment on the use of composting to dispose of catering waste and animal by-products. The objective of this study was to determine the risks to public and animal health from the land-spreading of the catering wastes after treatment by composting or in a biogas plant and to compare these with the risks from existing disposal routes.
In summary, the project determined whether current composting processes give a sufficient degree of pathogen destruction such that the risks to humans and animals are acceptably low and the material may be safely spread to land. The composting route for catering waste potentially presents lower risks to grazing animals than disposal through land-fill. This is because composting offers extra control points. First, the raw catering waste could be delivered to enclosed receptions where birds and animals cannot gain access. Second, a no-grazing period could be enforced after application of the compost to land. Following the risk assessment, we hope to consult shortly on amendments to the Animal By-Products Order which would allow catering waste to be composted and used on land as a soil conditioner rather than going to landfill.