Arabic version: بدء قواعد جديدة لجمع نفايات الطعام في إنجلترا، والعديد من المجالس غير مستعدة

New rules requiring weekly food waste collections for all homes in England have come into force, but dozens of councils are still not ready to provide the service. According to BBC News, an earlier investigation found 79 English councils – the equivalent of one in four – did not expect to meet the March 31 deadline.

Councils blamed the delay on demand for new specialist vehicles and funding issues, despite the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) giving out more than £340m in grants. Defra said it would continue to work with local authority waste networks and the wider industry, providing targeted support to help address outstanding issues.

WRAP, a non-governmental climate action organisation, called the Simpler Recycling rules “the biggest shake-up in recycling policy in England in 20 years”. When recycled separately, food waste can be used to produce electricity. This reduces the amount of waste rotting in landfill and releasing greenhouse gases. It is also hoped that making food waste collections available to all homes will encourage people to reduce how much food they waste in the first place.

While many councils are expected to launch their food waste collection services by the end of 2026, at least 31 councils have secured agreements allowing for a later start date for their weekly food collections, so will not be viewed as missing the deadline. These transitional agreements allow them to delay the introduction, in some cases for more than a decade, because they are locked into existing contracts which would be too costly to change.

WRAP’s director of insights and innovation, Claire Shrewsbury, emphasized the importance of uniformity in waste collection services across different regions. She noted that most households tend to dispose of recyclable items due to confusion, and that food waste recycling could lead to substantial positive outcomes for the environment. Defra has warned that councils failing to meet their obligations risk judicial review, highlighting the accountability of local authorities to their constituents rather than to government directives.