Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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291. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the measures his Department is taking to tackle the issue of food waste, particularly in view of the current negotiations at United Nations level for a target of halving global food waste by 2030; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29479/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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In order to maximise the resource potential and minimise disposal of our waste, the European Union (Household Food Waste and Bio-waste) Regulations 2015 build on the Waste Management (Food Waste) Regulations 2009. These two sets of regulations place clear obligations on waste collectors, businesses and households to promote the segregation and recovery of food waste for purposes of producing energy, compost and digestate, thereby supporting job creation in the waste and bio-energy sectors. The Regulations also facilitate the achievement of the targets set out in the Landfill Directive (Directive 99/31/EC) for the diversion of bio-degradable municipal waste from landfill sites, by directing source-segregated household food waste to composting and to other forms of treatment. There are positive indications that the implementation and enforcement of these Regulations are resulting in more food waste being diverted from landfill. The Environmental Protection Agency recently published Compost and Anaerobic Digestion (AD) Statisticsfor 2013 which highlighted the following trends:

-The quantity of municipal organic waste accepted for treatment at composting facilities was 158 kilo tonnes (kT) in 2013, a 3% increase from 154 kT in 2012;

-The quantity of food waste accepted at composting and AD facilities in 2013 was up 8% (from 105 Kt in 2012 to 114 kT in 2013);

-The quantity of brown bin organic waste (food and garden waste) accepted at anaerobic digestion facilities increased from 0.7 kT in 2010 to 7.7 kT in 2013.

The successful roll-out of the brown bin is dependent on appropriate education and awareness measures being introduced to support households in using the brown bin correctly. In this regard, my Department has provided sponsorship and grants to fund food waste awareness campaigns, including development of a dedicated website, , to provide the public with the information required to use the brown bin appropriately, including advice on the optimal methods for effective collection and storage of food waste.

A report conducted in 2013, entitled Review of Best International Practice on How to Educate Households on Using the Brown Bin Correctly, recommended a national pilot programme of ‘brown bin advisors’ to educate householders on how to use the brown bin system. Sligo County Council submitted a successful proposal to my Department for Sligo town to be the national pilot of the Brown Bin Advisor Pilot Programme. The aim of this project is to see how a range of educational and collection tools, such as the use of brown bin advisors and the provision of kitchen caddies to householders, can improve the capture and quality of food waste in the brown bin. The goal is to demonstrate the positive impact that relatively low cost measures can have on the performance of the system. On foot of the findings of this project, it is anticipated that the best practices identified in Sligo town will form a model for other towns to adopt.

The introduction of pay by weight as a condition for the collection of household waste will also have significant potential to reduce average household waste by almost one third and support higher levels of segregation by providing a clear price incentive for households to properly use the three-bin system. The simple message with pay by weight is that the less your bin weighs, the less you will pay.