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14 May 2019 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal
A trade body for anaerobic digestion is calling for weekly food waste collections for all households and businesses in England to "maximise the amount of inedible food waste recycled through AD into renewable biogas and digestate".
The biogas by-product can then be used for heat, power, and clean transport fuel and digestate for nutrient-rich natural fertiliser.
The Anaerobic Digestion & Bioresources Association (ADBA) was responding to the government's consultation on recycling consistency in England.
It added that universal collections would also "require more food waste AD capacity to treat and recycle the resulting separated food waste, and support for local authorities in their adoption of suitable recycling practices".
Charlotte Morton, ADBA chief executive, said it was "widely acknowledged that food waste collections reduce the amount of edible food thrown away by making this more visible - given the resources involved in producing food, this is the biggest benefit of separately collecting food waste".
She added: "As well as sufficient financial and educational resourcing for local authorities to ensure that food waste collections are affordable and effective, it's vital for ministers to now provide fresh support for the AD plants that will be needed to recycle the increased food waste that will become available as a result of universal collections - even with our collective best efforts to reduce food waste it cannot be eliminated and it remains a valuable resource that needs to be recycled."