The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) has said that there is likely to be more regulation to tackle food waste.
It said this in response to an announcement by Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh at the Labour Party conference in Brighton that it would introduce a landfill ban on food.
CIWM chief executive Steve Lee said: “The current debate about banning food waste to landfill highlights the seriousness of the issue. In addition to the cost to both society and the environment of discarded food that could have been consumed, the need to reduce the amount of biodegradeable waste going to landfill continues to be a strong policy driver.
“In the short term, we need to strengthen our efforts to raise awareness about the environmental and economic costs of food waste and ensure we have the right infrastructure to extract value from unavoidable food waste.
“In the medium term, we expect to see further policy measures across the UK governments to tackle this waste stream.”
In her speech at the Labour Party conference, Mary Creagh said: “A One Nation Labour government will ban food from landfill so that less food gets wasted in the supermarket supply chain and more food gets eaten by hungry children…
“…When Labour was in government, we led on environmental issues. With David Cameron in government, it’s a few large companies who are now leading on environmental issues. That’s just not right.”
