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Article 2- Kawtar Chafik 30021419 Who's responsible for food waste?

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Article 2- Kawtar Chafik 30021419 Who's responsible for food waste?

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Harvard Referencing: Welch, D., et al. (2021). Who’s responsible for food waste? Consumers, retailers and the food waste discourse coalition in the United Kingdom. Journal of Consumer Culture. [Online] 21(2), pp.236–256.

Article Review:

This article focuses on the issue of food waste in the United Kingdom, specifically household food waste and its relationship with supermarket food waste. The 'discourse coalition' group is the main influencer in how we think about food waste. The prevailing idea deems a shared responsibility between producers and consumers necessary, rather than attributing culpability just to the consumers. Retailers have proactively engaged in initiatives aimed at lowering household food waste via programs such as 'TooGoodToGo' and reducing prices of items that are due to expire. This study emphasizes the importance of comprehending the dynamics of food productions and consumption in tackling the problem of food waste.

This article is based on empirical research that has been conducted between 2014 and 2015. It includes a variety of sources, including interviews, both documentary and observational data and establishing key storylines throughout the journal article.

The relationships between stakeholders and their core practices has been researched and the key knowledge exchange relationship between them analysed. This article also mentions the pioneering work of wrap, a non-for-profit agency established by the UK government; this adds to the credibility of this source, with the previous points made.

In terms of relevance, although this article is almost a decade old, it is still very relevant to today's society as the issue of food waste persists. This article addresses the state of play of the discourse coalition at the time the research was conducted, providing a snapshot of the topic. The accuracy and validity of the article are supported by the use of multiple data sources and the analysis of key relationships. The purpose of the article is to contribute to the understanding of household food waste in the United Kingdom. Overall, the article's credibility, relevance, accuracy, and purpose make it a valuable resource for students studying this topic

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Article:4  Anika Sharmila Oyshi   30119097

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Article:4  Anika Sharmila Oyshi   30119097

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Harvard Reference: College , H. (2017). Tackling Food Waste at Home. [online] The Nutrition Source. Available at: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/sustainability/food-waste/food-waste-home/ [Accessed 15 Feb. 2024].

Article Summery: "Food Waste at Home," provided by the Harvard School of Public Health, delivers crucial insights into the pressing issue of food waste, particularly within household settings. Despite potential fluctuations in data and trends since its publication, the article's foundational principles and recommendations endure, rendering it a valuable resource for addressing this ongoing societal concern.

Reliability: The reason I think it’s is a reliable source Because it is credible because it is Published by the esteemed Harvard School of Public Health, the article is subject to rigorous academic standards and peer review processes, ensuring accuracy and reliability in its content.

Author Expertise: Authored by experts in the field of nutrition and sustainability, the article benefits from the credibility and authority of professionals versed in the complexities of food waste and its implications.

Data-Driven Approach: Drawing on a variety of sources, including research studies, government reports, and academic literature, the article substantiates its assertions with empirical evidence and statistical data.

Logical Reasoning: The article presents a logically structured argument, delineating the magnitude of the food waste problem, analyzing contributing factors, and proposing practical strategies for mitigation.

Strength: The reason I think this is a strong source  because it is shedding light to the consumers on the significant portion of food wasted at the household level, the article prompts readers to reconsider their consumption habits and adopt more sustainable practices.

The behavioural Offering actionable tips and behavioral interventions, the article empowers individuals to reduce food waste through mindful purchasing, proper storage, and creative utilization of leftovers.

The environmental Implications is emphasising the environmental repercussions of food waste, including greenhouse gas emissions and resource depletion, the article underscores the urgency of addressing this issue for global sustainability.

Economic Considerations of the source is quantifying the economic costs associated with food waste, the article underscores the financial incentives for households to minimize wastage and optimize resource utilization.

The Considerations and Limitations of the source:

Given the dynamic nature of consumer behaviour and food consumption patterns, the effectiveness of certain strategies proposed in the article may vary over time, necessitating periodic reassessment.

Cultural and Socioeconomic Factors of the article :

The applicability of recommendations may differ across diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts, warranting customized approaches tailored to specific communities.

Behavioral Change Challenges of the article:

While the article advocates for behavioral modifications to reduce food waste, it acknowledges the complexities of human behavior and the challenges inherent in fostering sustained behavioral change.

Resource Accessibility: Some proposed solutions may require access to resources or infrastructure not readily available to all households, potentially limiting their feasibility in certain settings.

Overall Value of the article:

Despite potential limitations I believe, "Food Waste at Home" serves as a valuable educational tool and practical guide for individuals, households, and communities striving to combat food waste. Its comprehensive examination of the issue, coupled with actionable strategies for waste reduction, makes it a relevant and impactful resource in promoting sustainable consumption practices. By acknowledging its context and potential constraints, the article encourages ongoing dialogue and innovation in addressing food waste at the grassroots level, thereby contributing to broader sustainability efforts on a global scale.

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Do you ever double a recipe but never finish leftovers that get pushed to the back of the refrigerator? Take advantage of a buy-one-get-one-free special on produce, even though you know it's more than you typically use? Forget about an unopened package of salad greens that have begun to turn slimy? Unfortunately, common situations like these often end with the trash bin. And while the issue of food waste is one that begins well before the home, here are some strategies for shopping, storing, and repurposing that can minimize your kitchen discards.
Shopping tips to minimize food waste

Prepare weekly menus ahead of time and use shopping lists. This is essential to know what and how much of ingredients to purchase. See our Meal Prep Guide to get started.

Be wary of impulse buys or specials on foods you normally do not eat. Don't shop hungry, which can influence how much and what foods you purchase.

Buy from bulk bins, but not in bulk. Purchase exact amounts whenever possible: single fruits or vegetables (rather than pre-bagged) and whole grains, nuts, and seeds from bulk bins.

Be particular about fresh produce. Squeeze, smell, and even have a taste if the store allows you. Choose the brightest, freshest looking produce that you can. If it has already softened or started to discolor, the ripening process has begun and will only accelerate at home.

Be aware of fruits that continue to ripen with time (climacteric) versus fruits that do not ripen further after harvesting (non-climacteric). Ideally non-climacteric fruits are harvested at peak ripeness because there is little you can do if you have purchased an unripe non-climacteric fruit. Climacteric fruits may taste sweeter the longer they are allowed to ripen, but this may be due to gradual water loss, which concentrates the natural fruit sugars.

Climacteric fruits include apples, apricots, avocados, bananas, cantaloupe, kiwi, mangoes, nectarines, peaches, pears, plums, tomatoes. Store these on your counter at room temperature until desired ripeness, and then refrigerate.

Non-climacteric fruits include bell peppers, berries, cherries, citrus (oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit), cucumber, eggplant, grapes, watermelon. Unfortunately sometimes you may purchase a non-climacteric fruit that has been harvested before ripeness (think sour blueberries or oranges!). See below, Reconsider foods that are usually tossed out, on how to use these items.

Consider buying "ugly produce" or supporting petitions for stores to sell them. These are misshapen fruits and vegetables that may get thrown out because they do not meet the usual standards for appearance.

It may also be time to reconsider the "fresh is always better" mantra. Food processing techniques such as drying, freezing, and canning can help to extend shelf life. Frozen food, for example, results in 47% less household food waste than fresh food. [1] People may eschew these foods due to perceptions of inferior food quality, like taste or texture, and loss of nutrients. However, it is important to remember that fresh food used past its peak ripeness can result in an even greater loss in quality and nutrients.

For dried and canned goods that can be stored for months or even years, shop sales but only as much as you realistically will use: whole grains, pasta, nuts, beans, lentils, tomatoes, corn, and sauces.

Similarly for frozen foods that last several months, shop sales on fruits, vegetables, and breads. Look for labels that state "flash frozen" that indicate the produce has been quickly frozen after harvesting to preserve nutrients.

For perishables like dairy and eggs, restock only when the current amount is 75% used.

Storing food to minimize waste

What Does that Expiration Date Really Mean? (click to expand)

The term "Expiration date" refers to the last date a food should be eaten or used. However, other terms stamped on packages like "USE BY," "BEST BY," or "SELL BY," can be confusing. Regardless of the term, consumers often interpret any of the dates as an indicator of when to discard the food, fearing spoilage or bacterial contamination. However, it is really an issue of food quality rather than food safety.
What they mean:

SELL BY: This is an indicator for the retailer of how long to display the food item. It is recommended to remove the items from shelves after the date but are still safe to eat beyond the date for some time.

USE BY: The last day recommended to use the product for peak quality and freshness.

BEST IF USED BY: A recommended date for best flavor and quality.

What they are:

It is not required by federal law to list an expiration date.

The dates are determined by the food manufacturer for peak quality, such as freshness, best flavor, and optimal consistency.

What they are not:

They are based on the individual manufacturer's judgment of food quality.

An indication of food safety, with the exception of infant formula and some baby foods, for which the "use by" dates are federally regulated. Many foods can be safely consumed after their "sell by" and "use by" dates, without risk of foodborne illness. See Meal Prep: A Helpful Healthy Eating Strategy to learn more about recommended storage dates of food.

In response to the consumer confusion about food date labeling, legislation was introduced in the U.S. on May 18, 2016, under The Food Date Labeling Act. [2] The bill aims to create a standardized national system for labeling that provides either: 1) a quality date that states "best if used by," indicating the peak quality of a food, or 2) a safety date that states "expires on," indicating when the food is unsafe to eat. While the quality date will be voluntary, the safety date will be required on all ready-to-eat foods. The bill also allows food to be sold or donated after its quality date, and educates consumers about the meaning of the new labels.

Follow the "First In First Out" method originally designed for food service establishments. Place oldest foods in the front, and plan meals around those ingredients first.

Keep leftovers in the front. Label the container with a piece of masking tape that lists an "eat by" date. Generally, leftovers keep well for about 3-4 days.

Try to prep vegetables as soon as you purchase them. Wash, chop, and dry them. Then store in labeled containers in clear view. Immediately stuffing them into the produce bins of your refrigerator increases their risk of being forgotten and not used at peak freshness.

However, the produce bins can be helpful if used properly. Did you know that they are not just extra storage space, but are controlled for humidity that can either prevent or speed spoilage? Newer refrigerator models have bins with a slider that reads "humidity" or "moisture" control. Sliding the tab in one direction closes off air circulation (higher humidity), and sliding to the opposite end allows airflow (lower humidity).

Low humidity is beneficial for produce that is not sensitive to water loss and emits high levels of ethylene gas. The low humidity setting allows air to circulate and dispel the gas that would otherwise speed ripening. Produce to place in this bin includes apples, avocado, melons, mangoes, pears, and peaches.

High humidity is beneficial for produce that is sensitive to water loss and deteriorates quickly in the presence of ethylene gas. The high humidity setting keeps the bin sealed from airflow circulating in the rest of the refrigerator, and protects the produce from gas emitted by other produce. Produce to place in this bin includes leafy greens, herbs, cucumbers, carrots, strawberries, bell peppers, and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.

Remove visibly aging produce and use immediately or compost it, as it can emit gases that speed the ripening of other produce.

Certain produce like potatoes, onions, tomatoes, winter squash, and basil should be stored at room temperature in a dry area.

Many foods freeze well, for months up to a year. Remember to label the date it was stored and review your freezer contents regularly. See our Meal Prep Guide for guidelines on recommended refrigeration and freezing times for various foods.

Reconsider foods that are usually tossed out

Revive wilted lettuce, sagging vegetables, and even herbs. As long as these foods do not have clear signs of spoilage (discoloration, slime, mold), they are worth saving. Because most vegetables contain about 90% water that is gradually lost during storage, adding back water can perk them right up. Slice the vegetables to allow greater surface area contact with water, then soak in a bowl filled with ice water for 15-20 minutes. Dry well before using.

If fruits begin to brown or become mushy, add to smoothies or baked goods. Add sagging vegetables that can't be revived to soups or casseroles.

Use vegetable scraps like carrot peels, celery leaves, parsley stems, mushroom stems, and onion skins to make a stock. Add the scraps to a large stock pot and cover with enough cold water until they float. Bring to a boil, then reduce to medium low and simmer for 30-45 minutes. Using a colander, strain the stock into another large pot. Discard or compost the remaining solids.

If you purchased a batch of too-tart fruit, add to a smoothie blended with sweeter fruits (banana, pineapple) or use in baked goods like muffins or fruit breads.

Toast stale bread and place in a food processor to make breadcrumbs as a coating for fish or poultry, or as a filler in a vegetarian meatloaf. Or brush bread slices with olive oil, cut into cubes, sprinkle with garlic powder, and bake at 350°F for 15 minutes to make croutons.

Eat skins of produce whenever possible: potatoes, cucumbers, kiwi, eggplant, tomatoes, carrots, apples, mangoes. Grate citrus skins like oranges and lemons into sauces or desserts, or onto fish and poultry.

Consider eating parts of produce that usually get discarded such as squash seeds, pulp, or the tough outer leaves of some vegetables.

Seeds: Rinse seeds and dry with paper towel. Place in single layer on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with seasonings of choice (try garlic or onion powder, curry, chili powder, Cajun spice, balsamic vinegar, or cinnamon) and a pinch of salt and pepper. Bake at 375°F for 15-20 minutes or until browned and crisp.

Pulp: If you juice fruits or vegetables, you are often left with a hefty pile of pulp and fibers. Add the pulp to soups, stews, or sauces as a thickener, or add to smoothies or muffin batter.

Brussels sprout leaves: After washing and drying Brussels sprouts, follow directions for roasting the seeds above, or see the Brussels Sprouts page for more cooking inspiration.

Composting

Even if we can reduce food waste over time with greater awareness and better planning, some waste is still inevitable. Composting food waste is beneficial to the environment and will help to keep it out of landfills. Compost added to soils enhances its nutrient content and structure, improves its water retention, and reduces the need for fertilizers and pesticides. [3]

Compost requires three ingredients: dead branches and leaves; grass clippings, food scraps or coffee grounds; and water. For further guidance on composting, see EPA: Composting At Home.
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Do you ever double a recipe but never finish leftovers that get pushed to the back of the refrigerator? Take advantage of a buy-one-get-one-free special on produce, even though you know it's more t...

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Article: 3   Anika Sharmila Oyshi  30119097

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Article: 3   Anika Sharmila Oyshi  30119097

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Harvard reference :College , H. (2017). Tackling Food Waste at Home. [online] The Nutrition Source. Available at: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/sustainability/food-waste/food-waste-home/ [Accessed 15 Feb. 2024].: Assessing the Reliability and Impact of "Food Waste in the United States: A Systematic Review of Literature"

Article summary:"Food Waste in the United States: A Systematic Review of Literature," published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, presents a comprehensive examination of the issue of food waste in the United States. Despite potential changes in data and trends since its publication, the article's systematic approach and in-depth analysis render it a valuable resource for understanding the complexities of food waste and informing strategies for mitigation.

Reasons for Reliability of the article :

1. Academic Source: Published in a reputable academic journal, the article undergoes rigorous peer review, ensuring adherence to high standards of research methodology and scientific rigor.

2. Author Expertise: The authors demonstrate expertise in environmental research and public health, enhancing the credibility of their analysis and conclusions.

3. Systematic Review Methodology: Employing a systematic review approach, the article systematically synthesizes existing literature on food waste, providing a comprehensive overview of the topic and minimizing bias.

4. Transparent Methodology: The article transparently outlines its search criteria, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and data extraction process, facilitating reproducibility and transparency in the research.

Specific Strengths of the article :

1. Comprehensive Literature Review of the article : By systematically reviewing a wide range of studies, reports, and articles, the paper offers a comprehensive overview of the factors contributing to food waste in the United States, including behavioral, economic, and structural determinants.

2. Quantitative Analysis: The article employs quantitative methods to analyze the prevalence and magnitude of food waste across different sectors of the food supply chain, providing valuable insights into the scale of the problem.

3. Identification of Key Drivers: Through their analysis, the authors identify key drivers of food waste, such as consumer behavior, supply chain inefficiencies, and policy gaps, paving the way for targeted interventions.

4. Implications for Public Health and Sustainability: The article underscores the public health and environmental implications of food waste, highlighting the need for concerted efforts to reduce waste and promote more sustainable consumption patterns.

Considerations and Limitations of the article :

1. Evolving Landscape: Given the dynamic nature of food systems and consumption patterns, the findings of the review may be subject to change over time, necessitating ongoing monitoring and updates.

2. Data Limitations: The reliability and consistency of data on food waste may vary across studies, potentially influencing the robustness of the review's findings and conclusions.

3. Regional Variations: The review focuses on food waste in the United States and may not fully capture regional variations or differences in food waste patterns and practices in other countries.

4. Policy Implications: While the review identifies policy gaps and opportunities for intervention, the effectiveness of policy measures in addressing food waste requires further evaluation and empirical research.

Overall Value of the article:

"Food Waste in the United States: A Systematic Review of Literature" serves as a valuable synthesis of existing research on food waste, offering insights into its causes, consequences, and potential solutions. By systematically reviewing the literature and analyzing key drivers of food waste, the article provides a foundation for informed policymaking and intervention efforts aimed at reducing waste and promoting sustainability in the food system. While acknowledging its limitations, the article contributes to ongoing efforts to address food waste and advance public health and environmental sustainability.

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1. Introduction

Food waste is a pervasive global issue with dire implications for human and environmental health. Up to 40% of food is lost or wasted along the food supply chain [ 1]. From an environmental perspective, this wasted food produces up to 10% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions [ 1]. The United States (U.S.) is responsible for the greatest global share of greenhouse gas emissions from food waste [ 2]. Recapturing this edible food could not only prevent environmental harm, but provide nutrition and energy for the 38.3 million Americans living in food-insecure households [ 3]. Researchers have estimated that reducing and reallocating total U.S. food waste by 15% could feed ~25 million people [ 4] and save USD 161 billion [ 5].

In recognition of the severity of this issue, in 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the nation's first-ever food-waste-reduction goal: to reduce food loss and waste by 50% by 2030 [ 6]. U.S. food waste occurs mainly in the later stages of the food supply chain [ 7], making foodservice and retail interventions crucial to achieve this goal. University campuses represent a particularly important setting to reduce food waste, as it has been estimated that, nationwide, they discard 22 million pounds of food each year [ 8]. This waste is driven by a variety of factors, including foodservice serving styles (e.g., buffet service) and consumer difficulties in estimating appropriate portion sizes [ 9, 10, 11]. In 2015, more than 200 campuses signed the American Campuses Act on Climate Pledge to "accelerate the transition to low-carbon energy while enhancing sustainable and resilient practices" [ 12]. Simultaneously, food-insecurity rates among U.S. college students have risen far above the national population average of 12%, with 20-50% of students reporting food insecurity [ 13]. Therefore, reducing and repurposing food waste on university campuses represents a promising means by which to reduce agricultural-related greenhouse gas emissions, reduce food insecurity, and save money.

Multiple studies have implemented and evaluated food-waste-reduction strategies on individual university campuses [ 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. These studies identified several solutions that may be successful, including removing trays from the foodservice area to encourage visitors to take fewer items [ 15], reducing portion sizes served [ 9, 18], and utilizing messaging campaigns [ 14, 16]. Another previous study documented trends in food waste across institutions of higher education in 24 different countries [ 11]. The researchers found that the majority of surveyed universities did not have a policy on food waste, nor did they actively measure food waste [ 11]. Despite these studies, there is a dearth of data documenting food waste generation, awareness, and reduction initiatives at a wide range of institutions of higher education across the U.S. Such data are necessary to understand the current state of national food-waste practices and how they may need to be modified to bring the country closer to its 2030 food-waste-reduction goal. The goal of this research was to characterize and quantify food waste concern and mitigation efforts among U.S. universities, with aims to: (1) document the current landscape of food waste across U.S. institutions of higher education; (2) identify effective food-waste-reduction strategies that can be adopted by other institutions of higher education; and (3) identify common barriers universities face in mitigating food waste, and how these relate to food insecurity in their communities.

2. Materials and Methods

Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health developed a survey in conjunction with Harvard University Dining Services and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic to profile institutions' levels of concern about and measurement of food waste, and strategies employed/barriers experienced to reducing and repurposing food waste. The survey was administered online via Qualtrics and included questions about campus food insecurity prevalence and reduction efforts ( full survey in Supplementary Material). U.S. universities that were members of university foodservice associations were recruited to take the survey (n = 447), including institutions in the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative (MCURC) (n = 51), and non-MCURC institutions that were members of the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS) (n = 396). The MCURC is a network of colleges and universities using campus dining halls as laboratories to inform food system transformation. An invitation with a survey link was emailed to dining directors, dietitians, sustainability representatives, and professors affiliated with each institution. A reminder email was sent two weeks later. Upon providing informed consent, respondents (one per institution) were directed to the survey. The final voluntary response sample consisted of responses from 57 dining service directors/staff from 57 different universities. Data were collected September 2019-February 2020. The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Institutional Review Board approved this study.

Descriptive statistics were calculated to summarize universities' demographics, food service operations, food waste reduction and repurposing activities, and obstacles to composting and donating. Although the survey asked participants to quantify the average amount of total food waste at their universities, this variable was not included in the presentation of results due to limited responses and a lack of standardization in food waste measurement between universities (e.g., some estimates were reported in tons of waste, others in dollars, others in calories, etc.); meaningful descriptive statistics in this area or more complex analyses were not possible. Data were analyzed using Stata MP17 and R 3.6.3. Demographic data on U.S. geographic region, level of urbanization, undergraduate enrollment, and funding were collected from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System [ 19].

3. Results

3.1. Institution Characteristics

Of the responding universities (n = 57), 35% were from the Northeast, 30% from the West, 21% from the South, and 14% from the Midwest ( Table 1). The majority were public institutions in urban areas, with institution size ranging from <5000 (21%) to >20,000 (46%). Most had self-managed dining facilities (79%). Nearly all institutions offered cook-to-serve food production, and most offered grab-n-go (81%) and all-you-care-to-eat meals (self-serve: 82%; staff-serve: 77%).

3.2. Food-Waste Concern, Measurement, Reduction Efforts, and Barriers to Reduction

Seventy-two percent of respondents stated that reducing food waste was a high or very-high priority, 75% reported having made a specific goal to reduce waste, and 77% tracked waste on their campuses ( Table 2). Institutions measured food waste at the pre-consumer level (47%), followed by the service level (40%), and post-consumer level (32%). One-third measured food waste at all levels (pre, post, and service), and 25% used a computer system to do so. Frequency ranged from daily, weekly, quarterly, semesterly, and annually. Thirty percent separated solid from liquid waste, and 16% separated waste into food groups.

Institutions used many food-waste-reduction strategies ( Table 2). The most common included forecasting demand to prevent overproduction (91%), preparing smaller batches (88%), using trayless dining (86%), changing menu planning (84%), and using leftovers for other dishes (81%). To repurpose food waste, 84% donated overproduced food to community partners and charitable organizations, 74% composted, 42% used food waste for industrial uses, and 12% (all rural) reused food waste as animal feed. Among schools that composted, 93% did so at the pre-consumer level and at the post-consumer level, and these institutions reported composting 72% of food waste, on average, per academic year.

The most frequent barrier to donating food was lack of labor (44%), followed by liability concerns (30%), lack of infrastructure (26%), lack of partnerships with potential recipients (21%), and state or municipal policies (19%) ( Table 2). The most frequently reported barrier to composting was lack of infrastructure (58%), followed by lack of knowledge/experience with composting (44%), lack of labor (42%), and financial concerns (28%).

3.3. Food Insecurity

Respondents from most institutions (74%) reported concern about campus food insecurity but only 47% reported that their institution measured it ( Table 3). Resources available to help alleviate food insecurity included food banks/food pantries (60%), meal swipe donations (46%), meals offered during breaks (35%), and discounted meal plans (11%).

4. Discussion

Our study surveyed foodservice directors and staff from 57 universities across the U.S. to better understand their current state of food-waste production and management, and to identify avenues for reducing and repurposing this wasted food. We found that roughly three-quarters of universities in our sample were concerned about their food-waste production, had specific food-waste-reduction goals in place, and were actively measuring their food waste. These results stand in contrast to a previous international survey of university foodservice practices, in which the majority of universities surveyed (60%) reported that they did not actively measure food waste [ 11]. These differences are likely due to the two studies' drastically different samples of universities surveyed (57 universities in the U.S. vs. 52 universities in 24 countries, including the United Kingdom (n = 8), Malaysia (n = 4), and Nigeria (n = 4) [ 11]). Despite the fact that many universities in our sample reported measuring food waste, our survey revealed that food waste is not measured in a consistent way in universities across the U.S. This lack of measurement standardization presents a barrier to implementing and evaluating coordinated reduction efforts across the country and could be ameliorated through the concerted adoption of a food-waste quantification standard. One standard that could be used is the Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard, which was developed by a multi-stakeholder partnership, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Resources Institute [ 20].

Our study also identified common strategies that U.S. universities utilize to reduce food waste, both on the production and consumer sides. On the production side, forecasting demand, preparing smaller batches of food, changing menu planning, and using leftovers for other dishes were found to be used by more than 80% of university foodservices to reduce food waste. This makes sense, given that the university dining environments included in this survey largely rotate menus every 2-5 weeks, making it more difficult for foodservice staff to inform next-day forecasting. Furthermore, the style of foodservice influences the type of waste generated, with all-you-care-to-eat environments (82% of universities surveyed) generally generating more service-level and post-consumer food waste [ 21]. To reduce food waste on the consumer side, we found that the majority of U.S. universities in our sample reported removing trays from the cafeteria, offering smaller portions, and using communication campaigns. Many of these solutions have been found to be effective in other university settings [ 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. Studies in restaurant settings can provide insights into other ways to incentivize consumers to only take as much food as they will eat, such as instituting a pay-by-weight system and/or providing smaller containers [ 22].

Increasing institutional capacity to donate wasted food that would otherwise be discarded is especially important given the high rates of food insecurity on U.S. university campuses [ 13]. Indeed, 74% of surveyed universities reported that food insecurity was an institutional concern. However, only 47% of universities reported measuring food insecurity rates on campus. Sixty percent of surveyed institutions reported providing food banks/pantries for food-insecure students, and nearly half offered the option for students to donate meal swipes to students in need, but providing meals during breaks and offering discounted meal plans were utilized less frequently. To directly connect students with food that would otherwise go to waste, university foodservice staff could consider using existing instructional technology to alert students when leftover food is available, as has been previously implemented and evaluated [ 24].

Besides food donation, the second most common repurposing method for wasted food was composting. The top barriers to composting were reported to be a lack of infrastructure, knowledge and experience, and labor. Financial concerns were the least common barrier, suggesting that upfront university investment in composting infrastructure and staff may be warranted and feasible to repurpose food waste more effectively. Leadership may also utilize existing sustainability resources [ 25] and turn to composting case studies from other universities [ 26, 27] to improve their practices. They can also consult with organizations focused on food-waste reduction that provide technical assistance, such as ReFED [ 28] and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic [ 29].

Results of this national survey can be used by foodservice operators and researchers to identify food-waste-reduction strategies and barriers. However, this study had several limitations. This sample is not representative of all universities across the country, and it lacks quantitative food-waste measurements. This prevents us from making generalizable conclusions about the association of food-waste-reduction practices and priorities with measurable outcomes. However, this study still identifies a range of strategies that U.S. universities could operationalize to reduce and repurpose food waste at their own institutions. The feasibility of different interventions will depend on each school's circumstances. Future studies should quantify food-waste production in a standardized way across a wide range of U.S. higher education institutional foodservice operations. It will also be important to investigate COVID-19′s impact on food waste to prepare for future foodservice disruptions.

5. Conclusions

Most U.S. universities surveyed in this study were concerned about their generation of food waste and were actively pursuing reduction strategies, but challenges remain to standardizing waste measurement and promoting food donation and composting. Food-waste reduction and repurposing strategies in university foodservice settings are important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and food insecurity on campus. Addressing barriers to progress can bring the U.S. closer toward its national food-waste-reduction goal.

Supplementary Materials

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, S.A.B.; methodology, S.A.B., G.C.A.C. and E.B.R.; formal analysis, R.M. and A.A.M.; data curation, R.M. and A.A.M.; writing-original draft preparation, A.A.M., G.C.A.C. and S.A.B.; writing-review and editing, A.A.M., G.C.A.C., S.A.B., R.M. and E.B.R.; supervision, S.A.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

A.A.M. is supported by NIH grant number 2T32CA057711. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Data are available upon request from the authors.

Acknowledgments

This research would not have been possible without the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative (MCURC). We wish to acknowledge Shirley J. Everett of Stanford University, and Greg Drescher, of The Culinary Institute of America-Eric Montell and Sophie Egan, MPH, for their vision and support, as well as the generous MCURC sponsor organizations.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

References

World Wildlife Fund-UK. Driven to Waste: Global Food Loss on Farms. Available online: https://wwfint.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/wwf_uk__driven_to_waste___the_global_impact_of_food_loss_and_waste_on_farms.pdf (accessed on 12 December 2021).

Porter, S.D.; Reay, D.S.; Higgins, P.; Bomberg, E. A half-century of production-phase greenhouse gas emissions from food loss & waste in the global food supply chain. Sci. Total Environ. 2016, 571, 721-729. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed] [Green Version]

U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. Food Security in the U.S.: Key Statistics & Graphs. Available online: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/key-statistics-graphics/#insecure (accessed on 4 May 2022).

Gunders, D.; National Resources Defense Council. Wasted: How America Is Losing up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill. Available online: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf (accessed on 12 December 2021).

USDA. Food Waste FAQs. Available online: https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs (accessed on 12 December 2021).

United States Environmental Protection Agency. United States 2030 Food Loss and Waste Reduction Goal. Available online: https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/united-states-2030-food-loss-and-waste-reduction-goal (accessed on 4 May 2022).

United Nations Environment Programme. Food Waste Index Report 2021. Available online: https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021 (accessed on 12 December 2021).

Food Recovery Network. FRN Featured on Food Tank. Available online: https://www.foodrecoverynetwork.org/blog/2016/1/27/frn-featured-on-food-tank (accessed on 5 May 2022).

The White House. American Campuses Act on Climate. Available online: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/11/american-campuses-act-climate (accessed on 12 December 2021).

National Center for Education Statistics. IPEDS: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. Available online: https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/ (accessed on 12 December 2021).

Food Loss + Waste Protocol. About the FLW Protocol. Available online: https://flwprotocol.org/about-flw-protocol/ (accessed on 4 May 2022).

Buzby, J.; U.S. Department of Agriculture. Good Samaritan Act Provides Liability Protection for Food Donations. Available online: https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/08/13/good-samaritan-act-provides-liability-protection-food-donations (accessed on 12 December 2021).

National Association of College & University Food Services. NACUFS Sustainability Guide. Available online: https://www.nacufs.org/SustainabilityGuide (accessed on 12 December 2021).

ReFED. Our Work: Stakeholder Engagement. Available online: https://refed.org/our-work/stakeholder-engagement (accessed on 5 May 2022).

Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic. The Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic: What We Do. Available online: https://chlpi.org/food-law-and-policy/ (accessed on 5 May 2022).

Publisher's Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Musicus, A.A.; Amsler Challamel, G.C.; McKenzie, R.; Rimm, E.B.; Blondin, S.A. Food Waste Management Practices and Barriers to Progress in U.S. University Foodservice. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 6512. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116512

Musicus AA, Amsler Challamel GC, McKenzie R, Rimm EB, Blondin SA. Food Waste Management Practices and Barriers to Progress in U.S. University Foodservice. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(11):6512. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116512

Chicago/Turabian Style

Musicus, Aviva A., Ghislaine C. Amsler Challamel, Robert McKenzie, Eric B. Rimm, and Stacy A. Blondin. 2022. "Food Waste Management Practices and Barriers to Progress in U.S. University Foodservice" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 11: 6512. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116512

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

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Food Waste Management Practices and Barriers to Progress in U.S. University Foodservice

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Identifying institutional capacity to reduce and reallocate food waste is important to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and food insecurity. The goal of this study was to examine food waste concern, reduction and repurposing strategies, and perceived barriers to these strategies among U.S. university foodservice representatives. We surveyed 57 U.S.

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Article: 2  Anika Sharmila Oyshi 30119097

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Article: 2  Anika Sharmila Oyshi 30119097

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Harvard Reference: Harvard T.H. Chan (2023). Food Waste. [online] Harvard T.H. Chan. Available at: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/sustainability/food-waste/ [Accessed 15 Feb. 2024].

The Reliability and Significance of "Reducing Food Waste: What You Can Do" from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Article summery: "Reducing Food Waste: What You Can Do," hosted on the website of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, offers valuable insights and actionable strategies for addressing the pervasive issue of food waste. Despite potential changes in trends and practices since its publication, the article's fundamental principles and practical recommendations endure, making it a valuable resource for individuals and communities seeking to minimize food waste.

Reasons for Reliability of the source:

I believe the source is reliable for the following reasons:

1. Trusted Source: The source is published by the reputable Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the article upholds high standards of credibility and accuracy, backed by rigorous research and academic expertise.

2. Author Authority: The source is authored by experts in nutrition and sustainability, the article benefits from the authority and credibility of professionals well-versed in the complexities of food waste and its implications for public health and the environment.

3. Evidence-Based Approach: Also because the source is grounded in empirical evidence and scientific research, the article draws upon a variety of sources to support its assertions and recommendations, enhancing its reliability and trustworthiness.

4. Clear Communication: Lastly I believe the source is reliable because the article employs clear and accessible language to convey its message, ensuring that readers can easily grasp the importance of reducing food waste and understand the practical steps they can take to address the issue.

Specific Strengths for the source:

I believe that this source is strong because of the following reasons:

1. Practical Guidance: I believe this source offers actionable tips and strategies, the article empowers individuals to reduce food waste in their daily lives through mindful shopping, proper storage, and creative meal planning.

2. Environmental Awareness: By highlighting the environmental impact of food waste, including greenhouse gas emissions and resource depletion, I believe the article raises awareness about the broader implications of wasteful consumption habits.

3. Economic Considerations: I believe the article underscores the economic costs associated with food waste, emphasizing the financial incentives for households to minimize wastage and save money through smarter consumption practices.

4. Health Implications: I believe this a strong source because it Recognises the connection between food waste, nutrition, and public health, the article underscores the importance of minimizing waste to ensure food security and promote healthy eating habits.

Considerations and Limitationsof the article:

I believe the following aspects are limitations and considerations you could take from the article:

1. Evolving Landscape: Given the dynamic nature of consumer behavior and food systems, the effectiveness of certain recommendations may vary over time, necessitating ongoing adaptation and innovation.

2. Cultural Context: While the article provides general guidance applicable to a broad audience, cultural and socioeconomic factors may influence the feasibility and adoption of specific strategies in different communities.

3. Behavioral Challenges: Despite offering practical solutions, the article acknowledges the behavioral barriers to reducing food waste and the need for sustained effort and education to effect meaningful change.

4. Resource Accessibility: Some recommended practices may require access to resources or infrastructure not readily available to all individuals, potentially limiting their applicability in certain contexts.

Overall Value of the article is: "Reducing Food Waste: What You Can Do" serves as a valuable resource for individuals, households, and communities seeking to address the pressing issue of food waste. Its evidence-based recommendations, coupled with clear and practical guidance, make it a relevant and impactful tool in promoting sustainable consumption practices and fostering environmental stewardship. By acknowledging its context and potential limitations, the article encourages continued dialogue and action to combat food waste, thereby contributing to broader efforts to build a more sustainable and resilient food system.

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Food waste occurs along the entire spectrum of production, from the farm to distribution to retailers to the consumer. Reasons include losses from mold, pests, or inadequate climate control; losses from cooking; and intentional food waste. [1]

This waste is categorized differently based on where it occurs:

Food "loss" occurs before the food reaches the consumer as a result of issues in the production, storage, processing, and distribution phases.

Food "waste" refers to food that is fit for consumption but consciously discarded at the retail or consumption phases.

Wasted food has far-reaching effects, both nationally and globally. In the U.S., up to 40% of all food produced goes uneaten [2], and about 95% of discarded food ends up in landfills [3]. It is the largest component of municipal solid waste at 21%. [1] In 2014, more than 38 million tons of food waste was generated, with only 5% diverted from landfills and incinerators for composting. [3] Decomposing food waste produces methane, a strong greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Worldwide, one-third of food produced is thrown away uneaten, causing an increased burden on the environment. [4] It is estimated that reducing food waste by 15% could feed more than 25 million Americans every year. [5]
Benefits of Less Food Waste

Cost savings on labor through more efficient handling, preparation, and storage of food that will be used.

Cost savings when purchasing only as much food as needed, and avoiding additional costs of disposal.

Reduced methane emissions from landfills and a lower carbon footprint.

Better management of energy and resources, preventing pollution involved in the growing, manufacturing, transporting, and selling of food.

Community benefits by providing donated, untouched, and safe food that would otherwise be thrown out. [6]

Proposed Solutions to Food Waste
Globally, reducing wasted food has been cited as a key initiative in achieving a sustainable food future. Sustainable Development Goal 12 addresses responsible consumption and production, which includes two indicators to measure (in order to ultimately reduce) global food loss and food waste. [7]

In the U.S, on June 4, 2013, the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency launched the U.S. Food Waste Challenge, calling on entities across the food chain, including farms, agricultural processors, food manufacturers, grocery stores, restaurants, universities, schools, and local governments. [1] The goals are to:

Reduce food waste by improving product development, storage, shopping/ordering, marketing, labeling, and cooking methods.

Recover food waste by connecting potential food donors to hunger relief organizations like food banks and pantries.

Recycle food waste to feed animals or to create compost, bioenergy, and natural fertilizers.

On September 16, 2015, both agencies also announced for the first time a national food loss and waste goal, calling for a 50% reduction by 2030 to improve overall food security and conserve natural resources.

The National Resources Defense Council issued a summary paper providing guidelines on how to reduce waste throughout the food production chain. [2] The following are some focal points:

State and local governments can incorporate food waste prevention and education campaigns, and implement municipal composting programs. Governments can provide tax credits to farmers who donate excess produce to local food banks. Proposed bills are currently in place in California, Arizona, Oregon, and Colorado.

Businesses such as restaurants, grocery stores, and institutional food services can evaluate the extent of their food waste and adopt best practices. Examples include supermarkets selling damaged or nearly expired produce at discounted prices, or offering "half-off" promotions instead of "buy-one-get-one-free" promotions. Restaurants can offer smaller portions and donate excess ingredients and prepared uneaten food to charities. Schools may experiment with concepts that allow children to create their own meals to prevent less discarded food, such as with salad bars or build-your-own burritos.

Farms can evaluate food losses during processing, distribution, and storage and adopt best practices. Farmers markets can sell "ugly" produce, which are discarded, misshapen fruits and vegetables that do not meet the usual standards for appearance. Farms can sell fresh but unmarketable produce (due to appearance) to food banks at a reduced rate.

Consumers can learn when food is no longer safe and edible, how to cook and store food properly, and how to compost. See Tackling Food Waste at Home.

The Environmental Protection Agency provides the "Food Recovery Hierarchy" graphic to explain ways to handle excess food. [8] From the most preferred at the top of the pyramid to the least preferred at the bottom tip, the methods include:

Source reduction: Earliest prevention by reducing the overall volume of food produced

Feed hungry people: Donating excess food to community sites

Feed animals: Donating food scraps and waste to local farmers who can use them for animal feed

Industrial uses: Donating used fats, oils, and grease to make biodiesel fuel

Composting: Food waste that is composted to produce organic matter that is used to fertilize soil

Landfill/Incineration: A last resort for unused food

Read Next: Tackling Food Waste at Home " Related

References

United States Department of Agriculture. U.S Food Waste Challenge. https://www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/faqs.htm Accessed 3/20/2017.

Gunders, D., Natural Resources Defense Council. Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill. Issue Paper, August 2012. IP: 12-06-B. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf Accessed 3/20/2017.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. Sustainable Management of Food. https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food Accessed 3/20/2017.

Salemdeeb Ramy, Font Vivanco D, Al-Tabbaa A, Zu Ermgassen EK. A holistic approach to the environmental evaluation of food waste prevention. Waste Manag. 2017 Jan;59:442-450.

D. Hall, J. Guo, M. Dore, C.C. Chow, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, "The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its environmental Impact," PLoS ONE 4(11):e7940, 2009.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. How to Prevent Wasted Food Through Source Reduction https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/how-prevent-wasted-food-through-source-reduction Accessed 3/20/2017.

United Nations. Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. http://www.fao.org/sustainable-development-goals/indicators/1231/en/. Accessed 1/16/2018.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. Food Recovery Hierarchy. https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery-hierarchy Accessed 3/20/2017.

Terms of Use

The contents of this website are for educational purposes and are not intended to offer personal medical advice. You should seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The Nutrition Source does not recommend or endorse any products.

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The Big Picture Food waste occurs along the entire spectrum of production, from the farm to distribution to retailers to the consumer. Reasons include losses from mold, pests, or inadequate climate...

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Article:1  Anika Sharmila Oyshi  30119097

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Article:1  Anika Sharmila Oyshi  30119097

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Harvard Reference: McGoodwin, A. (2018). Mitigating the Municipal Waste Management Crisis in Emerging Markets: A Cost-benefit Analysis of Enhancing Waste Management Interventions. [online] www.hks.harvard.edu. Available at: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/publications/awp/awp93 [Accessed 15 Feb. 2024].

The Reliability and Value of "Municipal Waste Management in Emerging Economies" (1993)

Article Summery: The 1993 article "Municipal Waste Management in Emerging Economies," published by Harvard Kennedy School's Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, offers valuable insights into the challenges and potential solutions for waste management in developing countries. While its age necessitates some context, the article's core message and research methodology remain relevant, making it a good source for understanding this ongoing issue.

Reasons for Reliability of the article: The reason I think it’s a Credible Source is because the article Published by a renowned academic institution like Harvard, the article undergoes rigorous peer review, ensuring the research meets methodological and quality standards.

Author Expertise: The authors, John R. Ehrenfeld and William H. Rees, are environmental policy and economics specialists, lending credibility to their analysis and conclusions.

Data-Driven Approach: The article employs data from various sources, including field studies, government reports, and academic literature, to support its arguments and recommendations.

Logical Reasoning: The authors construct a logical argument, clearly outlining the problem, analyzing potential solutions, and presenting a cost-benefit framework for decision-making.

Specific Strengths: I chose this article because I believe it strongly specific and brings early Attention to Emerging Market Issues. It highlights concerns about waste management in developing countries at a time when the issue was gaining less attention compared to developed nations.

Focus on Environmental and Economic Impacts: It emphasizes the significant negative environmental and economic consequences of improper waste disposal, urging action beyond just sanitation concerns.

The Cost-Benefit Analysis Framework of the article is that it proposed framework for evaluating the conversion of substandard landfills to sanitary landfills provides a quantitative tool for informed decision-making.

Recognition of Implementation Challenges: The article acknowledges the upfront costs and resource limitations that pose hurdles to implementing improved waste management practices.

Considerations and Limitations of the article is :

Published in 1993: The waste management landscape, including technologies and regulations, might have evolved since then, requiring an awareness of potential changes.

Potential Biases: As with any research, it's essential to consider the authors' perspectives and potential biases that might influence their analysis or recommendations.

Focus on Specific Context of the article it primarily focuses on waste management in large urban centers, and its applicability to smaller towns or rural settings might require further evaluation.

Overall Value of the article: Despite its limitations I believe that, "Municipal Waste Management in Emerging Economies" remains a valuable resource for understanding the challenges and potential solutions for waste management in developing countries. Its focus on environmental and economic impacts, along with the proposed cost-benefit analysis framework, offer valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners working in this critical area. By acknowledging its age and potential limitations, the article can still serve as a springboard for further research and informed decision-making on waste management in emerging economies.

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Article 4:              Jennifer mmbone       30124075                     sustainable waste Management through synergistic utilisation of commercial and Domestic organic Waste for efficient Resource Recovery and Valorisation in uk.              

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Article 4:              Jennifer mmbone       30124075                     sustainable waste Management through synergistic utilisation of commercial and Domestic organic Waste for efficient Resource Recovery and Valorisation in uk.              

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Harvard Reference: Ng, K., Yang, A. and Yakovleva, N. (2019) ‘Sustainable Waste Management through Synergistic Utilisation of Commercial and Domestic Organic Waste for Efficient Resource Recovery and Valorisation in the UK’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 227(13), pp.248–262. Available at: doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.136 (Accessed: 12 February 2024).

Article Review:

This article by Ng, Yang and Yakovleva (2019) presents a suitable framework for sustainable organic waste management and valorization because, even though the United Kingdom is facing challenges in solving food waste diversion from landfills, there is a lack of strategic approach and attention to the key areas of the issue. Therefore, the article reviews the current policy framework, analyzes the resource recovery potential from food waste at different levels, proposes alternative waste management strategies and examines challenges and opportunities at economic, environmental and social dimensions. The article explores how food waste and mixed waste can be valorized into electricity and transportation fuels using anaerobic digestion and gasification technologies showing a potential of reducing greenhouse emissions and electricity by 12% in a single supermarket store. Therefore, an integrated, circular and advanced technological approach to waste management comes with a range of benefits in economic, environmental and social dimensions.

I chose this article because it shows the potential of an advanced, integrated and circular technological approach in tackling food waste diversion from landfills and making it possible for resource recovery and valorization. This article has shown that valorization of waste promotes resource circularity, a synergistic approach is critical in waste management, technology determines the viability of valorization strategies, community participation is possible through decentralized waste management and having a supportive fiscal incentive scheme is key in waste valorization.

This journal article is peer reviewed hence credible and reliable as an academic source. Its purpose in this research is enhanced by the Systems Thinking Approach to Resource Recovery (STARR) framework which reviews waste management policies at the national level, analyses different situations and provides recommendations on food waste management.

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Article 4: Chibulu Chibesakunda 30117682

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Article 4: Chibulu Chibesakunda 30117682

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Harvard Reference: Bhardwaj, Abhishek Kumar et al., eds. Green and Sustainable Approaches Using Wastes for the Production of Multifunctional Nanomaterials. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier, 2024. Print. pp,1-15.

Article Review: Chapter 1 of this book which is the chapter that I used carefully describes Biogenetic waste, its impact on the environment and sources from which its produced and Non-biogenic waste, the sources from which it is produced and the impacts it has on the environment. It goes into further detail to provide strategies on how to manage the 2 different types of waste such as Road construction by plastic waste, the reuse of polythene, composting and many other solutions.

Why I chose this article: I chose this article because from my perspective I feel like the information in this book has been a good starting point for me as a first year student learning about concepts like Corporate social responsibility and waste reduction for the first time. The concepts and definitions discussed in this book have been uncomplicated and straightforward to grasp.

Credibility: I would say this book is not credible to a great extent. I say this because this books publishing house Elvsevier is known to be controversial. According to research I did, some journals published by the company are not credible. Although this may be true, the definitions and strategies provided in the book are credible. When I searched other platforms for the definitions and strategies being given in the book I found similar results.

Relevance/Reliability: I would say that this book is reliable only to the extent of it being available online at Science Direct which is a reliable research tool that has peer reviewed most of its materials. I would however like to argue to a great extent that this specific material is not reliable simply because its publisher is not a credible source. i would say this source is relevant because it answered my my research questions on waste reduction with credible solutions and definitions.

Accuracy/Validity and Purpose: I would say the concepts and strategies discussed in the book are accurate because for example, composting exists the results of composting and information on how to compost are available and in practice making it and the other definitions and strategies accurate and valid. I conclude by saying that I believe the purpose of this book would be to give researchers and business owners an idea to the type of waste they are producing with the products they are creating. Additionally it would also to give them insight into how that waste could ultimately be applied to a waste reduction strategy that is in accordance with the type of waste being produced.

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Article 1: Chibulu Chibesakunda 30117682

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Article 1: Chibulu Chibesakunda 30117682

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Harvard Reference: Insider, B. (2023). Four Fascinating Ways to Turn Trash Into Fuel | World Wide Waste | Insider Business. Available at: https://youtu.be/alljc5elqqw?si=IwdBy7-ESBfUro1l [Accessed 9 Feb. 2024].

Article Review: The Youtube video above explores different ways food waste is recycled and made into new products that are viable. This was explored through Business Insider going to four different business's in the world to see how they got energy from food waste. The four different business's individually made: Vegetable Bio Gas, Coconut Briquettes, Argentinian Bio Logs and Tofu Bio Gas all using food waste products from other business's.

Why I chose this article: I chose this article because I found it interesting how small scale business's are able to make sustainable decisions with the little equipment they have available to them. It is an inspiring video to all entrepreneur's and it provides strategies of how other companies can be innovative and manage their food waste and create a sustainable global foot print.

Credibility: I would say this source is credible to a great extent because it was recently published meaning the waste management strategies listed in the source are not outdated. However, Business Insider is also known to have some bias in some of its findings. Although this may be true I also did my own research and found that the companies listed in the video do exist and are selling the products they claim to sell.

Relevance/Reliability: I would say this source is relevant and reliable because the companies mentioned in the video are verifiable, do exist and sell the products and services they claimed to sell. the information given in the video is also accurate, I investigated a little bit deeper into the Coconut Briquettes origin story and did in fact find that the companies founder did start the company in aims to put an end to deforestation due to his family being lost in a land slide caused by deforestation. I would also say it is applicable to what my research on waste management so that would make it relevant.

Accuracy/validity and purpose: I would say this video is accurate because we visually get to see the procedure's taken to make food waste into energy. it can be seen how these different business's do create a sustainable difference in their communities. Market vendors know that even if their produce goes bad and is not bought, it will not go to waste because it will be turned into Vegetable Bio gas and the bi-product of the will be fertilizer which will help the market vendors produce grow, this is only one example to why I would say that this video is accurate and valid. I believe the purpose of this video was to innovate other entrepreneurs to take accountability of their waste and find new way's to reduce.

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Four Fascinating Ways to Turn Trash Into Fuel | World Wide Waste | Insider Business

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Article 2- Kawtar Chafik, 30021419- Who is responsible for food waste?

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Article 2- Kawtar Chafik, 30021419- Who is responsible for food waste?

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Harvard Referencing:

Article Review:

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Daniel Welch, Joanne Swaffield, David Evans

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Who’s responsible for food waste? Consumers, retailers and the food waste discourse coalition in the United Kingdom - Daniel Welch, Joanne Swaffield, David Evans, 2021

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Drawing on empirical research, including interviews with 38 key informants, this article examines how the challenge of food waste reduction has come to be frame…

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Article 1- Kawtar Chafik, 30021419 Waste reductions behaviours in different settings/environments

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Article 1- Kawtar Chafik, 30021419 Waste reductions behaviours in different settings/environments

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Harvard Referencing: Whitmarsh, L. E. et al. (2018) Waste Reduction Behaviors at Home, at Work, and on Holiday: What Influences Behavioral Consistency Across Contexts? Frontiers in psychology. [Online] 92447–2447

Article Review:

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Article 04 : KIRUSHIKA MAHENDRA - 30111057             

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Article 04 : KIRUSHIKA MAHENDRA - 30111057             

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Harvard Reference:

Niyitanga Evode, Sarmad Ahmad Qamar, Muhammad Bilal, Damià Barceló and Hafiz M.N. Iqbal f. (2021). Plastic waste and its management strategies for environmental sustainability. [online] ScienceDirect.

Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cscee.2021.100142

Article Review:

This article addresses the under researched area of Plastic waste and its management strategies for environmental sustainability.

Plastic uses have become a part of our lifestyle.  As its use increases, its massive consumption has massive consequences. Nowadays, plastic is widely used in our daily life activities including packaging in various food and brewing companies, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other manufacturing sectors. Plastics are produced through the biochemical process of polymerization or polycondensation. Post use plastic waste can have many adverse effects on the environment if not properly disposed of.Due to high demand, mass production of fibers and resins has increased worldwide. However, the production of plastic and poor waste treatment practices has many harmful environmental impacts. ‘About 9% of the generated waste is recycled, which is a very small amount compared to the total production. It has been reported that approximately 80% of waste accumulated in landfills or natural environment’. The poor disposal and plastic waste mistreatment effects that mentioned by the researcher are categorized into four, such as Effects on land, Effects on water and air quality, Effects on animal life and Effects on public health. I choose this article because its relevant and very easy to understand.  They write the article using simple sentences with understandable and  a descriptive  manner.  All people can understand easily. The way they put the contents in order by headings is perfect. This article shows what is plastic not in scientific way but in a simple way and how they produce it. It also shows the management strategies for plastic wastes.  Moreover, the article establishes the methods which can clean the environment and great plastic waste disposal, such as recycling, incineration, landfills, pyrolysis, bioremediation. The way they illustrates how plastics are harmful to the environment by picture is very clear.

In conclusion,

Plastic waste causes a significant threat to environmental strength and the future of our planet. As simple as its usefulness is, the challenges it creates are complex, and overcoming them requires a comprehensive approach that prioritizes individual and systematic changes. Further than simply managing plastic waste, we need to explore sustainable solutions that address the problem. Creating a path towards a plastic free future is in everyone’s hands. By adopting best practices, fostering collaboration, and empowering individuals, we can transform plastic waste from burden to resources , and create a sustainable pathway for future generation to come.

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Abstract

The massive consumption of a wide range plastic products has generated a huge amount of plastic waste. There is a need to provide awareness of their uses and routine management as a part of our lifestyle. Nowadays, plastics are increasingly being used in our daily life activities, including the packaging in different food and brewing companies, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and other production sectors need to pack their end products for efficient and safer product's delivery to the community. Plastics are produced through the biochemical process of polymerization or polycondensation. The post-use of generated plastic waste has many adverse impacts on the environment if not processed and managed in a proper way. This review aims to discuss the lifecycle of plastic products according to their different categories, including polyvinyl chloride (PVC-U), polystyrene or styrofoam (PS), polypropylene (PP), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polyethylene terephthalate (PETE), and others. Herein, we have also discussed the problems caused by the inadequate processing of plastic waste and the possible solutions that can be provided to ensure a good atmosphere and to reduce the causes of climate changes, which is challenging to life on this planet.

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Plastic waste and its management strategies for environmental sustainability

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The massive consumption of a wide range plastic products has generated a huge amount of plastic waste. There is a need to provide awareness of their u...

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Article 01 - KIRUSHIKA MAHENDRA : 30111057

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Article 01 - KIRUSHIKA MAHENDRA : 30111057

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Harvard Reference:

@smartcitysweden.Waste Management. (2022). Sweden. Available at: https://youtu.be/8krzjlHaGes?si=k_yWVu38rbjlT6Fm.

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Article Review:

‘In Sweden sustainable consumption, waste prevention, reuse and repair are the primary measures to create a circular economy and reduce the amount of waste generated’. The reason why I choose this video is that it highlights the waste management and its importance in shortly and in a very easy and descriptive manner. Furthermore, Sweden did not think waste management as big deal, they simply handle the waste management with effective Swedish deposit system, rules and regulations over the years. Moreover, they use education as an important tool to increase awareness among people. Because children are the future generation who are going to save the planet. So, they accustomed to waste management from a young age. According to their research, less than 1% of household waste ends up in landfills. Their effective Swedish deposit system charges a small amount of fee for plastic bottles and aluminium cans when purchasing a drink, which is refunded when the bottles and cans are deposited at a deposit station. Also, the world's first large-scale ability for automated textile is introduced in south of Sweden. In here every year about 24000 tonnes of textiles are sorted for reuse for new purposes, increasing the reach of the textile value chain. Around 40% of natural waste in Sweden is transformed into biogas, which is used as fuel for transport.  Non-recyclable waste which containing toxic elements and impurities is converted into electrical energy, heating or even district cooling. Here at Linkoping, they see waste as a valuable resource rather than a major issue. For example, the households sorting their regular food waste into a green bag. The green bag is taken to an optical sorting facility where the green bags are sorted from the non-green bags. The green bags are then transported to the biogas provision to produce and upgrade it to the vehicle fuel and supply both packed in biogas and liquefied biogas. They also produce bio-enrichers, which are distributed to their local farmers and propagated on arable land. It will also boost agricultural production growth.

In Conclusion, Waste management is very important all over the world. Apart from researching whether there is a facility for human life on the planets in space, taking care of the earth we live in will not cost more than the cost of space research. We have only one earth to live on, and we have to take care of it safely. We need to recycle more, reuse more and ensure that waste never occurs. This earth cares for us like a mother but let us not shorten its life in return.

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Article 3: Karin Bugalová - 30106572 Waste reduction in hotel practices

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Article 3: Karin Bugalová - 30106572 Waste reduction in hotel practices

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Harvard referencing:

Han (2018) Water conservation and waste reduction management for increasing guest loyalty and green hotel practices. International journal of hospitality management. [Online] 75.

Article review:

WHY? : I've picked this article peer-reviewed article due to it's credibillity and current. As for the other reasons, I doubt anyone truly thinks about how much waste we produce while on vacations and it would be interesting to bring a light to it. I believe that when we stay in hotels, we want to relax and enjoy our time there rather than think about how much water we waste. Another thing I found intriguing were all the different ways the hotel tries to be more sustainable and how much they are willing to do to achieve more guests. To add to the subject of guests, I think it shows how businesses, in this case hotels, try to adapt to new opportunities and interests of the consumers. Being sustainable and eco-friendly is somewhat of a ‘hot topic’ right now, so adjusting their hotels to achieve this brings them a whole new range of consumers, while their previous guests might not even notice the change. During my search for the articles on the topic of waste reduction in hotels, I could find only outdated ones. We could say the article is biassed due to the fact that the authors are definitely focused on sustainability but there’s no direct proof of it.

WHAT? : This study specifically focused on the role of guests’ attention regarding hotel practices of waste reduction, where water conservation belongs. Especially in recent years, hoteliers have shown a higher interest in establishing an enduring relationship with eco-conscious guests, by improving their own eco-friendliness, such as not using chemical products or offering greed education programs, or just providing a bigger selection of green foods and beverages. Although, water conservation and waste reduction are thought of as the most dominant in hotels which are trying to improve their relationship with sustainability. This article was partly based on a field study which was organised in Vietnam. The data analysis consisted of 289 responses. This study revealed that hotels, which use water conservation and waste reduction significantly boost values and pro-environmental intentions. Both the enjoyment, as well as the practical benefits of staying in an eco-friendly hotel played a role in this improvement. Additionally, if the responders already were concerned with the environment and sustainability, as it played a significant moderating role. In summary, this study managed to create a theoretical framework which clarified how eco-friendly hotel practices that use water conservation and waste reduction, along with other values and environmental concerns, can contribute to shaping the pro-environmental intentions of the guests’.

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Article 2 : Chibulu Chibesakunda 30117682

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Article 2 : Chibulu Chibesakunda 30117682

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Harvard Reference : Tufail, H.S., Rana Muhammad, S.Y., Amnah, M.A., Ramzan, S., Shaid, A.U. and Refat, M.S., 2022. Consumers’ Purchase Intention of Suboptimal Food Using Behavioural Reasoning Theory: A Food Waste Reduction Strategy. Sustainability, 14(14), pp. 8905.

Article review: The article above discuses a study about increasing levels of food waste and how it has a negative effect on our environment. The study suggests that consumers are part of the reason for food waste as more consumers lean to purchasing more optimal food than suboptimal food( a yellow banana instead of a brownish banana) which leads to waste of perfectly good foods. The article continues to provide strategies of ways for consumers to change their mindset to one that positively impacts food waste production. The study used a BRT on consumers in Pakistan which is a consumer behaviour framework that investigates relationships between products and consumer values, attitudes and reasons for consumers not wanting to purchase suboptimal foods.

Why I chose this article: I chose this article because I believe it offers a different perspective on waste reduction. What I mean by is I believe most on the time waste production is mostly blamed on business 's but this article helped me see that the consumer also have a part to play in waste production. The strategies mention in this article also help me understand what I as a future business professional can do to ensure my future consumers make better purchasing choices.

Credibility: I believe this article is credible because it has correct citations and a reference list that is dependable, it is honest stating in the conclusion of the article that a limitation to this research was only studied on consumer behaviour in Pakistan and not in other countries which would make it one sided and goes further to encourage readers to their own research.

Relevance/Reliability: I believe this article is relevant because it has impacted on my knowledge and perspective on waste management and consumer behaviour. It also relevant to issues impacting the world today. I believe it is reliable because it is peer reviewed by experts in this field and because I believe that study is was well thought out and conducted.

Accuracy/Validity/purpose: I believe this article is accurate because it is addressing issues currently affecting business's and the environment and because the publication is from proquest which from my research is a reputable publication company. I believe this source valid because the results collected from the study are qualitative meaning, there's is exact numbers/frequency's showing results from the study and showing how accurately the results responded. I also believe that the purpose of this study was to study consumer behaviour to help firms be more sustainable. Because my perspective changed on on food wastage after reading this article I also believe that the purpose of this study could have also been to raise awareness to consumers of how much they are indirectly contributing to food waste.

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Article 03 : KIRUSHIKA MAHENDRA - 30111057

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Article 03 : KIRUSHIKA MAHENDRA - 30111057

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Harvard Reference:

Barton, Allan F.M. (1979)Resource Recovery and Recycling. Newyork.Chichester. Brisbane.Toronto: A Wiley-Interscience Publication.

Article Review:

This review describes how the core waste management approaches such as resource, recovery and recycling have been explored over more than 45 years ago. The extreme growth of the garbage problem makes it clear that recycling should be our aim. Therefore, it is necessary to explore all aspect of reuse. The viewpoint of materials recycling provides a new direction, and the relevant chemical and physical properties of materials should be considered in various recycling processes. This book went deep in the recycling process with science and technology. It is a scientific bases and criteria for recycling and energy recovering. This contribution aims to fill the gab in our understanding about recycling, so it went deep with science. Since why I chose this book for the recycling understandings. It seems more accurate and relevant information with the scientific explanation. From this book we can see that ‘There is no material that cannot be recycled if the incentive is sufficiently great’. All materials can be recycled. However, it should be noted that the useful life of a metal product is typically 20-30 years. So the recycled volumes of many metals reflect production at that time, which was much lower than the current production, and this is particularly evident for aluminium.  Recycling need not be huge, industrialised level, we throw away valuable things without using them for other needs arounds us. It is enough if we use it for other purposes. Recycling rates are often constructed on combined obsolete and immediate waste recovery. The term ‘Recycling’ is now viewed as colloquial and scientific, and is popular in newspaper headlines. Even more important than examples of recycling presented in this book is the public attitude towards resources and security. We cause many waste products to form. It is clear that reducing unnecessary consumption is much more difficult.

Conclusion: In general, recycling is difficult from an economic, transportation and chemical point of view. Recycling is only considered by everyone if there is a scarcity of natural resources or environmental protection. While the purpose of this chapter is briefly considering the importance of the many factors that influences decisions on recycling, the remainder of the book focus on scientific and technical factors.

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Article 4: Karin Bugalová 30106572 - Podcast

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Article 4: Karin Bugalová 30106572 - Podcast

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Harvard referencing:

Bothwell, L. (2019) ‘NothingWasted! Podcast’, Spotify [Podcast]. 22 August. Available at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2EWRoux2Eu5MkhnwuF9eQU?si=Wvf5Xk03QnOteTzFMNfkcA (Accessed: 7 February 2024)

Article review:

WHY? : There’s a lot of reasons why I chose my article review to be about a podcast, the main one being that a podcast in its form is unique. While we have proper articles, podcasts are way more convenient and reach further audiences by being free, obviously that’s not the case for all of them. Podcasts, unlike peer-reviewed articles, are only somewhat reliable. While the podcast I picked specifically has a lot of episodes, which can come as a proof of the creators’ understanding of our subtopic, they also invite a professional in the field who deals with this topic nearly on a daily basis. Thanks to their guest, Amy Young from Sims Municipal Recycling, we get to focus a bit on the business side of recycling, making it more relevant to us. While in my opinion, I think that this podcast is somewhat biassed. The creators aren’t academic professionals, meaning that they are less likely to be able to discuss these issues from an educated standpoint. The topic of their podcast is what they practise everyday and it is a large part of their lives, which could result in biassed opinions or viewpoints.  As for convenience, you can listen to podcasts almost anywhere, in your car while driving home or just on a simple walk. Thanks to this, podcasts are becoming only more and more popular, meaning that when we use them to share important messages, as is waste reduction, we can help influence a larger variety of people.

WHAT? : The podcast focuses on Amy Young and the company she works for, Sims Municipal Recycling, where she works as a deputy general and a manager. They take on multiple topics, for example how pollution affects animals, an education centre opening or the use of AI and modernization of their company. Liz mentions an Expo where Amy attended as a spokesperson and touched on the subject of materials and objects that are hard to recycle, solar panels and more. While the company itself focuses on collecting metal, glass, plastic and paper, in this podcast Amy prioritises the glass department, since that’s where she works. At the end she proceeds to give advice to people who are interested in joining this kind of business. Here she mentions that we should keep open minds, go to work wanting to learn new things and that you can learn from anyone no matter what position they’re in.

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Living the 3 Rs (Reduce, Reuse & Recycle)

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Listen to this episode from NothingWasted! Podcast on Spotify. Listen as Amy Uong, deputy general manager of Sims Municipal Recycling (and one of our Waste360 40 Under 40 winners), talks about about the latest challenges in materials recovery and processing, the importance of connecting and sharing knowledge with the entire industry and more.

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Article 3: Chibulu Chibesakunda 30117682

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Article 3: Chibulu Chibesakunda 30117682

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Harvard Reference: Somlai, R. (2022). Insights into business strategies for reducing food waste in the Australian food industry. Business Strategy and the Environment, [online] Vol.32(6), pp.3151–3164. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3292.

Article Review: The article above outlines business strategies to reduce food loss and waste in the Australian food industry by 2030. The article will offer reliable recommendations and solutions for food loss and waste reduction. Some strategies that will be discussed in this article include sustainability development goals (SDG`s developed by the UN in September 2015), the food loss and waste standard( FLW Standard), sustainable business models, FLW reduction tools, The Food : To Good to waste implementation Guide and Toolkit and documents reviews. All these strategies and the more in the article go into depth about how they helped businesses in Australia reduce their food waste.

why I chose this article: I chose this article because it gives awareness to what waste production is and it offers different examples of how business's in Australia are planning to tackle waste reduction in their country which I consider is important information to have as I am taking a profession in business.

Credibility: I also chose this source because it is an up to date meaning the strategies discussed in this article are ones that have recently been examined making it credible. I accessed it of the Wiley online Library which is a credible source to get information which I also makes it credible.

Reliability/Relevance : I think this article is reliable not only because the some strategies mentioned in this article are already in practice like the Sustainability development goals but also because the information in this article has been been peer reviewed by experts in this field.

I also think this article is relevant because it gives insight into my research question and it is discussing issues happening in the world today which is ways food companies can be sustainable by being responsible and reducing food waste.

Accuracy/Validity and purpose: I believe the article is valid because the information in this article is not opinionated and is not biased it did not receive any funding from any funding agencies only the RRSS which is accurate because the article discusses food waste reduction. The writer also states that he had no conflict of interest when he was writing this article . I also think this article is valid because it is honest, towards the end of the article the writers outlines some limitations in the source encouraging researchers to do further research because the some business's do not make all their procedures and practices public. I think the purpose of this article was to raise awareness to business's outside Australia about food waste reduction and give business's a different perspective on how they can implement some of Australia's business food waste reduction strategies in their own firms.

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Article 1: Karin Bugalová 30106572 - Waste reduction in small businesses

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Article 1: Karin Bugalová 30106572 - Waste reduction in small businesses

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Harvard referencing:

Caldera (2018) Exploring the characteristics of sustainable business practice in small and medium-sized enterprises: Experiences from the Australian manufacturing industry. Journal of cleaner production. [Online] 177.

Article review:

WHY? : My main reason for picking this article was the credibility, it is peer-reviewed and you can find direct information on how it was done as well as other interesting information regarding it. Another one of my reasons was that as a Business and Management major, I expect a lot of my current classmates to eventually start their own small businesses, due to this, they might reach a point in their business when they might have to do a similar research to this one and could use this article for a secondary research. This article provides a lot of information for people thinking of starting a sustainable small or medium-sized business in Australia. Since it’s based on a location, it might not be as applicable for people starting a small business in the UK, but it can still give you an idea of where to start and what to look out for. I find it interesting how they use the examples of companies that are already a part of the ‘lean and green’ practice and use it to inspire other businesses to become more sustainable. While it is focused on Australia, I believe there’s a lot of small businesses here in the UK that could do their own research and take inspiration from this article, it could be a good starting point.

WHAT? : This article tries to call out small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) in the Australian manufacturing industry. It talks about how this type of business creates a significant proportion of global pollution and how they should start engaging in the so-called ‘sustainable business practice’. It proceeds to take 13 companies, which are engaged in the lean and green practices in Queensland, Australia, then analyses their sustainability and key characteristics.

Using a literature review and a prior study there are nine characteristics revealed from the three themes of environmental stewardship, process excellence, and sustainability oriented-culture. Since this study was based on a natural-resource-based view, these findings can be used to help small and medium-sized enterprises with evaluating their methods while identifying sustainability, helping with reducing their waste reduction, and being more eco-friendly.

In conclusion, this study added a fourth strategy of ‘regenerative development’, this consists of trying to have a positive impact and help with sustainability of the environment. Adding sustainability to SMEs needs patience and dedication, as to optimise the lean and green practices. But as the study suggests - there could be future research carried out to test the lean and green propositions, as well as investigating it more specifically and using the found tools to advance the sustainable business practice in a variety of manufacturing organisations.

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Article 2: Karin Bugalová 30106572 - Food waste reduction in supply chains

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Article 2: Karin Bugalová 30106572 - Food waste reduction in supply chains

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Harvard referencing:

Aramyan (2021) Food waste reduction in supply chains through innovations: a review. Measuring business excellence. [Online] 25 (4), .

Article review:

WHY? : This reviewed article is a bit different compared to the other articles I’ve picked due to the fact that it’s not a part of a journal but it’s still a credible source. The research was carried out under the auspices of the REFRESH project, which turned my sympathies towards this article. Although, due to this we could say the article is somewhat biassed, even though food waste reduction is important in the world of today. On the note of the REFRESH project, this article discusses food waste reduction, and more specifically about innovative solutions to help with this. While this article is relevant right now, I’m sure it will only become more relevant over the course of the next few years if we don’t actually try to adapt at least some of these innovations. The article is done by secondary research and most of it links us to previous research which has been combined by authors. Due to it being a secondary research, the authors show the use of secondary research, and also provide correct referencing. If you want to truly check the credibility of this article, the authors provided proofs of previous researches through all of their references, which it’s based off of.

WHAT? : It discusses how truly significant the global issue of food waste is, which consists of 1.3 billion tons annually. In the EU, the annual food wastage equals to 25% of the food purchased by each household. Meanwhile, In China $32bn worth of food ends up as wastage while in the US it’s $165bn, equivalent to 40% annually. There have been different types of innovation to reduce and prevent the food wastage along the supply chain. In these innovations we can find new technologies, services, marketing and branding. This article aims to analyse the factors that stand behind the decisions of agri-food supply chain operator’s decisions to accept these innovations for food wastage and offers them a potential solution to help solve this global issue. However, the article also highlights the challenges for businesses in trying to address food wastage, such as high costs, long pay-back time, resource constraints and the lack of a ready market for surplus produce.

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Artical 2:              Jennifer Mmbone              30124075                     The waste prevention programme for England: Maximizing resourses, minimising waste.                                

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Artical 2:              Jennifer Mmbone              30124075                     The waste prevention programme for England: Maximizing resourses, minimising waste.                                

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Harvard Reference: (2023)  'The Waste Prevention Programme for England: Maximising Resources, Minimising Waste'. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/waste-prevention-programme-for-england-maximising-resources-minimising-waste/the-waste-prevention-programme-for-england-maximising-resources-minimising-waste (Accessed: 10 February 2024).

Article Review:

The policy paper above focuses on a waste prevention program for England as set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan whose success relies on how the society will change the relationship with how they use resources. The Resource and Waste Strategy published in the year 2018 sets out the long-term commitment that seeks to eliminate avoidable waste by the year 2050 and this strategic approach focuses on the two principles that are to prevent waste from occurring and to manage it better when it occurs. The paper discusses the policy approach by the government cutting across three themes: designing out waste, systems and services, and data and information. Seven key sectors for action are construction, textiles, furniture, electronics, vehicles, plastic and packaging, and food which are discussed based on what the government has done up to date and what it plans to do with specific actions for each sector.

I chose this paper since it builds an understanding of the policy approach and strategies for waste reduction which is critical for the identification of the most desirable methods of waste minimization and prevention. At the policy level, it is possible to determine how businesses and households deal with waste hence enhancing the commitment to comply with waste legislation, change business practices to avoid or minimize waste, use waste management options, reuse and recycle waste, and separate the types of waste and label them for easy management. This paper provided information critical in reflecting on the milestones in waste reduction and long-term plans that the government has for waste reduction.

This article is credible, and reliable and serves its purpose in the discussion of waste minimization since it is a government policy paper and the government plays a critical role in providing a guideline on how waste should be reduced and avoided by businesses and at home. The paper discusses the achievement in different sectors the actions that will be taken for better outcomes and the achievement of the long-term goal as described in the Materials and Manufacturing Vision 2050 which is the innovative vision for the United Kingdom.

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1. Introduction

As set out in our Environmental Improvement Plan resources on our islands - indeed on our planet - are finite and precious. Their extraction and manufacture can cause environmental harm. We want to make it easier for people to do the right thing especially against a background of a cost of living crisis, it's critical to maximise the use of these resources and minimise their waste.

Success relies on us, as a society, to change our relationship with how we use resources.

In 2018, we published our Resources and Waste Strategy which set out long-term commitments and ambitions to eliminate avoidable waste by 2050. This waste prevention programme sets out how we will achieve strategic principle 2 of the Resources and Waste Strategy - to prevent waste from occurring in the first place and manage it better when it does.

We were making great strides forward in people's attitudes towards reuse, with recycling rates increasing over the longer term, but when COVID-19 arrived we were knocked back. We reverted to single use plastics as a default, to protect our own health. People needed new single-use products like facemasks and test kits, and understandably prioritised public health by buying products with additional packaging. Between 2019 and 2020 there was a large increase in residual waste, as the household recycling rate fell by 1.5 percentage points and total waste from households increased by 0.5 million tonnes.

Everything we use and consume requires resources that come from somewhere. We need to reclaim the ground lost and remind people of the positive action they have understandably got out of the habit of doing over the last few years. Our programme aims to make it the norm to reduce and reuse, so we can reduce residual waste and make our economy truly circular and sustainable.

One of our greatest challenges in the fight to preserve our natural environment is how we best shepherd our precious limited natural resources and avoid the creation of unnecessary waste and pollution that will outlive us by many thousands of years. However, it is also one of our biggest opportunities. By preventing waste, we can be more efficient with our resources, saving businesses and consumers money and reduce pressure on the environment.

We consulted on a new Waste Prevention Programme for England 'Towards a Resource Efficient Economy' between March and June 2021. This document, Maximising Resources, Minimising Waste constitutes the new Waste Prevention Programme for England. It sets out our priorities for action to manage our resources and waste in accordance with the top layers of the waste hierarchy - prevention and reuse.

We will take a policy approach encompassing 3 cross-cutting themes:

1. Designing out waste: Including ecodesign and consumer information requirements, and Extended Producer Responsibility schemes.
2. Systems and services: Including collection and take-back services, encouraging reuse, repair, leasing businesses and facilities.
3. Data and information: including materials databases, product passports (sets of data, unique to the specific product that can be accessed online and give detailed information on, for example, contained materials, components and history, to support improved outcomes such as higher quality recycling) and voluntary corporate reporting.

We have selected 7 key sectors for action, based on available data on the amount of waste arisings or known carbon emissions from production:

Table 1 in Annex A shows the significance of each sector in terms of waste arisings, and sources of published data are cited where available throughout this document.

Any new policy proposed in this programme will be subject to public consultation considering individual and cumulative impacts on public expenditure, the cost to business including small and medium-sized enterprises, and consumer choice and affordability.

Government expenditure plans are set out in single or multi-year spending reviews. Given the long-term nature of these plans, beyond this current spending review period, funding for commitments will be dependent on decisions at the next spending review and beyond.

Why do we need to take action on waste prevention?

Greater demand for products and materials globally puts increasing pressure on our natural resources and contributes to accelerating the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Managing large quantities of waste is a challenge, considering volumes, cost and impacts.

Figures presented in the Climate Change Committee's 2022 Progress Report to Parliament show waste emissions in 2020 were approximately 25 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent ( MtCO2e), almost 6% of UK emissions. Much of this comes from landfill, particularly biodegradable waste which degrades anaerobically to create methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than CO2. Through the Net Zero Strategy, we are committed to explore options to work towards the near elimination of biodegradable municipal waste to landfill from 2028.

Sustainable consumption and production, embodied by United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, is vital for achieving transformative change to address this. Using resources efficiently is one of the main pillars of this Sustainable Development Goal, and action to prevent waste is critical in this respect.

At the 15th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in December 2022, nations adopted 4 goals and 23 targets for 2030 in the landmark United Nations biodiversity agreement known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Target 16 sets out the ambition to significantly reduce our consumption and waste generation in order for all people to live well. It aims to do this by ensuring that people are encouraged and enabled to make sustainable consumption choices including by establishing supportive policy, legislative or regulatory frameworks, improving education and access to relevant and accurate information and alternatives, and by 2030, reducing the global footprint of consumption in an equitable manner and halving global food waste.

Waste prevention has huge potential, as a number of reports discuss including from Business In The Community, Green Alliance, Waste and Resources Action Programme and Aldersgate Group. Products and materials need not become waste with good design, systems and services, and data. Benefits include:

Reducing waste decreases emissions across the whole product lifecycle, increases resource security, safeguards our natural environment, creates jobs in value retention activities such as remanufacturing and helps us achieve net zero.

Products that last longer and can be affordably repaired rather than replaced, perhaps with multiple use cycles and owners, present an important opportunity for consumers to save money.

Where more products are reused, repaired, and remanufactured, a larger sharing economy is achieved, and where material inputs are required, secondary materials are more frequently used.

By substantially reducing the rate at which products and materials become waste, benefits include lower greenhouse gas emissions, increased resource security, safeguarding of the natural environment, plus jobs and affordable products. Consumers can save money by repairing rather than replacing items that are worn or no longer work, and by buying quality pre-owned products which are designed to last.

When resources are valued, people are less likely to litter them. For instance, a deposit return scheme for drinks containers would boost recycling levels, reduce littering, and offer greater opportunities to collect higher quality, uncontaminated materials in greater quantities thus promoting a circular economy.

We want to encourage business models which maximise the value of end products, for example through sharing of products supported through digital systems. Or greater servitisation where the company retains ownership and responsibility for maintenance but sells the product as a service, for example online music platforms. This maximises the useful life of the product. This will be supported by the adoption of ecodesign principles in marketed products, aiding consumers to make even more informed decisions using reliable information about the sustainability of their product choices, and collection of more products once consumers no longer have use for them. Reuse and repair facilities and services will increasingly be available for consumers, and information about the availability of secondary materials will be more readily available to manufacturers which want to use them.

How does this programme relate to "Our Waste, our Resources: A Strategy for England" and to our wider environmental and economic goals?

The new programme builds on and embeds strategic principle 2 from our Resources and Waste Strategy - to prevent waste from occurring in the first place and manage it better when it does. Our goal is for a circular economy approach which retains products and materials in circulation for as long as possible and at their highest value.

To drive down the amount of waste we produce, and encourage reuse and recycling, the government has set an Environment Act 2021 environmental target to halve residual waste (excluding major mineral wastes) kg per person by the year 2042. This will be measured as a reduction from 2019 levels, which is estimated to be approximately 574 kg per capita. The target will:

help to deliver our overarching aim for zero avoidable waste by 2050

support the commitment in the government's Net Zero Strategy to the near elimination of biodegradable municipal waste to landfill from 2028 and reduced emissions from landfill and incineration, saving an estimated 35 MtCO2e by 2050

build on the Resources and Waste Strategy commitments to help achieve a 65% municipal recycling rate and send less than 10% of municipal waste to landfill by 2035

support the government commitment to eliminate avoidable plastic waste by 2042

The target sets a clear direction for reducing the amount of waste per person and can be delivered both by waste minimisation and recycling.

Waste prevention will help with our commitments to double the resource productivity of our economy by 2050, protect our natural capital, and contribute to goals in areas such as:

natural capital - water, air and biodiversity: globally, we extract three times the resources we did in 1970, and this is estimated to more than double by 2060.

greenhouse gas emissions - as stated in the Net Zero Strategy, greater resource efficiency will help cut emissions from manufacturing including processing of construction materials (16% of UK's emissions in total), whilst also reducing waste emissions (6% of UK's emissions). It will also help reduce consumption-related emissions from the production of goods and services consumed here but partly generated overseas. As stated in the UK and England's carbon footprint to 2019, embedded emissions from imports to the UK stand at approximately 300 MtCO2e (2018) and UK production emissions attributable to UK final consumption at 255 MtCO2e. Reuse compared to recycling reduces emissions from processing and manufacture as well as extraction of raw materials.

economic resilience - resource security: better management of our Material footprint in the UK is estimated at 971 Mt consumption-based emissions (in 2018), including 400 Mt of imports, increases our economic resilience and supports a transition to a low carbon economy.

jobs and growth - a significant proportion of products consumed in England are imported, so shifting towards a more circular economy has the potential to increase jobs locally. Chartered Institution of Wastes Management's Beyond Waste: Essential Skills for Greener Tomorrow estimated an aggregated total of new roles on top of today's baseline to be 238,600.

Also relevant to waste prevention are the 2021 to 2025 Greening Government Commitments. These set out the actions being taken by Government to improve the environmental performance of its own estate and operations. It sets an overall target to reduce the amount of waste generated by 15% from the 2017 to 2018 baseline and includes further sub-targets to aid this such as removing consumer single use plastic from the central government estate, measuring and reporting on food waste.

Consultation outcome

The consultation on the Waste Prevention Programme 'Towards a Resource Efficient Economy' conducted in 2021 showed there was broad support for greater focus on waste prevention and for embedding circular economy approaches in policy, making use of levers such as ecodesign and Extended Producer Responsibility ( EPR). We recognise the importance of a shift to a circular economy and agree that Extended Producer Responsibility is a powerful tool to deliver this as part of our Resources and Waste Strategy. As with any tool, we need to make sure it is the right tool to solve the problem, therefore Extended Producer Responsibility will be considered alongside a framework of policy options. Respondents also wanted to see more definitive actions and timelines. We have added these where possible but in many cases policies are still in development with timelines to be agreed.

Working together across the UK and the government

Though this is an England-only programme, as waste policy is devolved, we have shared goals across the United Kingdom and agreed ways of working together, set out in the provisionally agreed Resources and Waste Common Framework. We welcome the contributions other nations have made in moving towards greater circularity, notably the Welsh Beyond Recycling Strategy, the Scottish Making Things Last: a circular economy strategy for Scotland and the Waste Prevention Programme for Northern Ireland- Stopping Waste in its Tracks. We also recognise the benefit for consumers and producers of common provisions in some areas across markets and are committed to working closely in particular on regulatory measures including where we consider Extended Producer Responsibility schemes.

The UK Government welcomes the Scottish Government's decision to align commencement of deposit return scheme ( DRS) in Scotland with rest of the UK DRS schemes. Aligning commencement will reduce complexity for businesses and consumers. It is essential that all UK DRS schemes are interoperable and that businesses and consumers can easily understand what is required to comply with DRS requirements. Defra is working with devolved administrations at pace to collectively agree the best approach.

Across government we are committed to delivering on Net Zero and the Environmental Improvement Plan, encouraging growth, creating jobs and supporting UK supply chains, and this will involve assessing a range of policy measures.

We are funding a joint research project with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to improve our understanding of how resource efficiency can enable industry to transition to Net Zero. This study will draw together evidence on the barriers and enablers to implementing resource efficiency measures and the degree of potential efficiency these measures could achieve, supporting both waste prevention and wider environmental aims.

The upcoming Waste Sector Decarbonisation Plan will build on the Resources and Waste Strategy for England, and bring together in one place the policies, plans and research from across Government which will help us in our journey to decarbonise the waste sector in England through to Carbon Budget 6 (2033 to 2037). This includes policies that directly contribute to UK net zero as part of the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan, plus policies which support decarbonisation more broadly, including through reducing emissions abroad as well as from other sectors in the national inventory, for example through improved resource efficiency.

Additionally, UK Research and Innovation have a number of projects encouraging resource efficiency and waste prevention including:

2. Designing out waste

Our aim: to drive change in product design so that products are made to be durable, repairable and recyclable, and can be remanufactured where appropriate, through policies such as ecodesign, consumer information, and Extended Producer Responsibility schemes.

Our linear model of 'take, make, use and dispose' comes with high social, environmental and financial costs. Products on the market that break or wear out prematurely are often not easily repairable or recyclable, or contain chemicals that are harmful to human health or the environment, hindering reuse and recycling. Evidence collected by the Waste and Resources Action Programme ( WRAP) on Embedding environmental sustainability in product design suggests that 80% of the damage inflicted upon the environment when products become waste can be avoided by decisions made at the design stage. Premature obsolescence is expensive and frustrating for consumers. Improved design can also increase our economic resilience in particular where this involves reuse or recycling of critical minerals such as the cobalt and lithium in batteries.

Setting 'ecodesign' requirements means products must meet a mandatory minimum level of environmental performance, or be designed in a certain way, in order to be placed on the market. For example, regulations may require a certain level of energy efficiency, proportion of recycled content, minimum number of use cycles before performance deteriorates or that certain components can be easily removed and replaced by consumers when they fail.

Informed consumer choice helps drive the market. Providing information that consumers can trust, supported by other policies, can support a shift toward greater resource efficiency. A 2019 Waste and Resources Action Programme report titled: ' The Effectiveness of Providing Pre-Purchase Factual Information in encouraging more Environmentally Sustainable Product Purchase Decisions ' showed that products labelled with their environmental credentials may be preferred over unlabelled products. The UK is well placed to make this shift due to its manufacturing and design expertise.

Studies such as Eunomia's 2016 report ' A Resourceful Future - Expanding the UK Economy ' also show economic opportunities for industries focused on repair and remanufacturing.

The government published a new energy-related product policy framework in 2021, which set out plans to reduce the energy and resource consumption of energy-related products, primarily by introducing new ecodesign requirements for certain products. To support the development of the framework, research was undertaken, to identify the appliances with the greatest opportunity for improvements, and to assess policy options. In addition, we have completed new research titled ' Implementing eco-modulation into the UK's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment system and exploring resource efficiency and eco-design for energy-related products ' to explore resource efficiency options aimed at further reducing the environmental impact of electricals across their full lifecycle with particular focus on production and disposal.

As announced in the Plan for Water in April 2023, we will publish our response to our mandatory water efficiency labelling scheme consultation. We will engage with our stakeholder steering group on the next stages of design and standards to implement the scheme in 2025.

In 2020 to 2021, the government introduced updated Ecodesign requirements for a small group of electrical appliances. These measures included, for the first time, requirements relating to spare part availability and information for repairers, as well as requirements relating to disassembly for lighting products. Also in 2021, we consulted on recyclability labelling (on packaging) as part of our proposals to introduce Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging.

The Competition and Markets Authority published their Green Claims Code: making environmental claims in 2021 with 6 key principles, reinforcing consumer protection law, that firms making green claims must follow. They "must not omit or hide important information" and "must consider the full life cycle of the product". If a business doesn't comply with the law, the Competition and Markets Authority or other bodies - such as Trading Standards Services, The Advertising Standards Authority or sector regulators - may take action.

We have conducted research into possible approaches for consumer information such as binary indications, for example whether a product is recyclable or not, and multifactorial rating schemes based on key aspects such as durability, reparability, recyclability and recycled content.

In February 2023, UK Research and Innovation launched the Circular Critical Materials Supply Chains ( CLIMATES) fund, with an initial £15 million to focus on making the UK's rare earth element supply chains more resilient and boosting the circular economy. This will support innovations in the recycling of rare earth elements, as well as research and development, engagement with international partners and activities to identify and support future skills needs.

What the government will do

In line with a 'designing out waste' approach the specific actions we will take are as follows:

1. We will continue to work with industry, academia and other key stakeholders to support the shift towards product, material and business model design for greater circularity and resource efficiency, minimising waste and reducing environmental and climate impacts. We will encourage industry to set their own standards, reducing the need for regulation.

2. For electrical equipment and appliances, in line with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero 'energy-related products policy framework', we will consider broadening the Ecodesign requirements described in chapter 2 to a wider range of electrical products, if our analysis supports that approach. We will also explore additional ways in which ecodesign could be used to support the material resource efficiency of electricals, for example requirements for modular design to facilitate repairs, upgrades, disassembly and recovery of components and materials.

3. In the Environment Act 2021, we obtained powers to be able to implement mandatory eco-design, Extended Producer Responsibility schemes and require environmental information be provided for consumers, or product passports for use throughout value chains. For non-energy-related products such as textiles and furniture we will explore how we can use these powers. We will continue to work with stakeholders to gather data and build our evidence base in order to understand which actions would result in the biggest impacts, whilst minimising burdens on business.

4. In line with our Resources and Waste Strategy commitment we are exploring the role that guarantees and warranties can play in ensuring products stay in use longer and maintain their value. We will look to see if research is needed.

3. Systems and services

Our aim: to ensure there is a well-functioning system of public, private, and voluntary sector and social enterprise organisations, and services operating at the local level that facilitate reuse, repair and remanufacture of products, addressing market weaknesses such as limited collections and reverse logistics.

Reuse and repair are not new practices; they were commonplace in the past. In the present day consumers can save money by repairing items or buying quality pre-owned goods. Whilst in some cases fast changing technology can render older products obsolete, most older products continue to be useful if resold, repaired, or remanufactured. But the relative costs of doing so and sending individual products back to the manufacturer, known as "reverse logistics", can be difficult and costly, particularly for smaller businesses.

Change is underway with new business models in terms of hiring, sharing and leasing. In this burgeoning "sharing economy", consumer goods, food, and transport (such as bikes), are distributed on demand using digital platforms, which extends the useful life of products. As Defra's Pilot for a Nursery Equipment Product Service System (an Action-Based Research project on a product service system for baby buggies and car seats) identified, liability and reverse logistics are the main challenges to be addressed.

Some local authorities currently facilitate reuse through Household Waste Recycling Centres ( HWRCs) and bulky waste collections. The voluntary sector and social enterprise, reverse logistics, re-commerce businesses and emerging digital platforms provide further opportunities for sharing and resale. Charity shops and social enterprises, like the Reuse Network, provide jobs and affordable quality goods, whilst also reducing waste.

Despite these services, as per WasteDataFlow - Local Authority waste management data 2019 to 2020, a considerable share of products suitable for reuse - either collected as part of local authority-run bulky waste collections, taken to Household Waste Recycling Centres or simply thrown in the bin - are treated as waste and disposed of or at best, recycled. Pre-covid, of the 62 local authorities who reported on bulky items collected for recycling or reuse at Household Waste Recycling Centres, reuse accounted for only 8% of the total. Only 15 of these authorities reported more than 100 tonnes of bulky items being collected for reuse with the proportion varying between 4% and 44%. A 2012 Waste and Resources Action Programme study into the re-use potential of household bulky items of 14 Household Waste Recycling Centres indicated that some 32% of bulky items deposited might be suitable for reuse. Research suggests that waste prevention and reuse at the local level is held back by lack of storage space, which is expensive in urban areas.

With items being defined as waste once deemed to be "discarded" by an owner, it is claimed that it can be uneconomical to reuse them because of the extra regulatory burdens. As a result, the Definition of Waste Guidance was updated, making it clearer for businesses in assessing whether a material is waste or not. We also supported the Waste and Resources Action Programme to produce a Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) Guide which included reuse systems.

Defra has completed an initial case study into possible Resource Efficiency Clusters. It found they were helping to address market failures in terms of lack of information about opportunities; a lack of capability and capacity amongst businesses; and disincentives in materials pricing. This is occurring through peer-to-peer activity and the input of specialist practitioners. The research did not draw definitive conclusions about the most effective type of clusters but considered IT solutions were likely to be important in supporting this activity.

The Department for Business and Trade supports the Retail Sector Council's Green Street project giving high street businesses the knowledge, tools and skills to help them become more sustainable.

What the government will do

In line with encouraging and supporting action by business, the voluntary sector and social enterprise, and local authorities, we will:

1. Ensure the waste hierarchy is more stringently applied when companies and other bodies deal with their waste. The waste hierarchy ranks waste management options according to what is best for the environment. It gives top priority to preventing waste in the first place. When waste is created, it gives priority to preparing it for re-use, then recycling, then recovery (including anaerobic digestion or incineration with energy recovery), and last of all disposal (for example, landfill or incineration without energy recovery). We will revise our waste hierarchy guidance by 2024, setting clear expectations for how decisions on waste treatment routes should be made. We will also consider whether changes to waste legislation could be usefully made to support a more circular economy.

2. Develop best practice guidance on reuse for local authorities, including consideration of how reuse is reported, to help ensure that more Household Waste Recycling Centres and bulky waste collections are performing an effective role in waste prevention as well as enhancing local communities', business' and the voluntary sector's roles in achieving more reuse, including case studies of successful reuse hubs.

3. As a means of reducing the burden on local authorities and ensuring that it is as easy as possible for households to return unwanted old items for reuse or recycling, we will consult on proposals to remove fees for consumers to have bulky domestic furniture collected from their homes by 2025.

4. Data and Information

Our aim: make use of data and digitalisation to support greater use of secondary materials and used products, as well as to increase transparency in terms of progress by local authorities and businesses.

Large quantities of industrial waste are produced annually. Data from the government's UK statistics on waste show that 10.5 million tonnes were produced in England in 2019. In some cases, this waste can be used as an input in other processes, replacing virgin materials. For instance as noted by global cement's article, slag from steel-producing blast furnaces can be a substitute material to make cement. By making use of secondary materials and industrial by-products in manufacturing, we can significantly reduce waste, become more self-reliant in terms of materials, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As Defra's Review of the Future Resource Risks Faced by UK Business notes, maximising the value obtained from critical minerals is important in transitioning to Net Zero, as products such as electric vehicles are dependent on materials such as lithium. Research by the University of Leeds on making the most of industrial wastes found materials critical for low-carbon industries, for example to manufacture turbines and electric vehicle batteries, can also be derived from industrial waste such as steel slag and fly ash. Better data and information can facilitate their extraction from products containing these materials at end of life to maximise the value obtained.

Industrial symbiosis involves using the secondary materials from a given industrial process as inputs in a different industrial process. This can generate new value from previously under-used waste streams and by-products, and promote growth at regional and national levels as well as wider environmental benefits. An evaluation of the previous National Industrial Symbiosis Programme () suggests that industrial symbiosis can bring significant benefits to UK industry from the money saved by diversion from landfill alone. This independently verified report on the lifetime economic impacts of the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (2005 to 2013) identified savings of £1 billion for business, carbon emissions reductions of 42 million tonnes, and sizeable reductions in virgin material use and water usage.

Product passports, which provide accessible information on the material constituents of products can facilitate more effective recovery and reuse of their materials. This could include information on critical minerals, such as rare earth elements, cobalt or lithium, that are mostly imported and important for low-emission technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, batteries and solar farms as noted in a Resource Recovery from Wastes report.

Ease of access to data is a fundamental enabler. It can support sourcing of industrial secondary materials as inputs as well as investment decisions that require knowledge of material availability. Studies, like the European Commission's study and portfolio review of the projects on industrial symbiosis in DG Research and Innovation also identify facilitation as a crucial element that is needed to advance the implementation of industrial symbiosis. Facilitation accelerates symbiosis through the identification of potential opportunities to use secondary materials as inputs between potential partners or businesses. Further research is needed to establish the economic and material potential for increased symbiotic activity in the UK and the role of a facilitated network within this scope.

Reducing the use of hazardous substances in materials and products (articles and objects) can help remove some barriers to reuse and recycling, as well as encourage the use of secondary materials. It can also mitigate the impact of 'legacy substances', where chemicals in products placed on the market are later restricted, for example by being listed as Persistent Organic Pollutants which impact on the water supply. The substitution and management of hazardous substances can be improved through better identification and tracking of chemicals in products through supply chains and to the waste stage.

Another important area in which data usage is important is in both local authority and corporate reporting on resource efficiency approaches. This helps track progress and enable benchmarking across industry and authorities. Corporate reporting also supports channelling of investment funds into sustainable businesses. Considerable headway has been made on common standards of carbon reporting, but not yet on resource efficiency, for example, use of secondary materials or levels of reuse of products and materials.

We have carried out an initial exploration of opportunities from industrial symbiosis. Models for effective symbiosis programmes vary, and successes are quite often achieved at a local level. For example, in Northern Ireland the Invest NI Resource Matching service continues to build on the foundation of the earlier National Industrial Symbiosis Programme network and in England the West Midlands is currently investigating an Industrial Symbiosis programme.

We have undertaken research to help us understand how best to track chemicals in products (articles and objects) across supply chains, to reduce barriers to reuse and recycling whilst reducing the risk from harmful chemicals.

Through the UK Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals ( REACH) work programme and contributing to our Plan for Water we are proposing developing new restrictions on the use of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances ( PFAS). They are highly persistent chemicals, sometimes referred to as 'forever chemicals', which are used in lots of everyday products. They remain in the environment for years after use and move between different parts of the environment, including soil and water bodies, the presence of these chemicals may limit opportunities at the end of life.

What the government will do

The government committed in the Resources and Waste Strategy to address information barriers to the use of secondary materials. To take this forward:

1. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will continue to explore the potential role of industrial symbiosis in reducing emissions from industry and how best to facilitate this. It will build on early-stage research conducted in 2021 to explore how a facilitated industrial symbiosis network could operate and the benefits of doing so. This will be informed by a data strategy to maximise synergies without compromising data security, recognise regional differences, and complement existing initiatives.

2. Defra will continue to take action to establish a digital waste tracking system which will help us better understand stocks and flows of waste returned to the economy as secondary materials. Defra consulted on proposals for the introduction of mandatory digital waste tracking in 2022. We will issue our Government response to that consultation in 2023, and expect to start private beta testing the digital platform later in 2023. The dates for implementation will be subject to the time needed for IT development, and the transition time needed by businesses.

3. Defra and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will work with other Departments and industry to continue to explore options to support greater accessibility and quality of materials data. The shared objective is to provide greater visibility of material flows to support the resilience and circularity of industrial supply chains. High quality materials data along material supply chains is critical to informing the development of a wide range of government policy areas and to the effective monitoring and evaluation of these policies.

4. Defra will explore using the resource efficiency information power in the Environment Act 2021 or other relevant powers for the introduction of product passport requirements, to support reuse and extraction of secondary materials. This could be as part of a broader product policy framework including for example Extended Producer Responsibility, ecodesign or consumer information requirements.

5. As noted in chapter 1 the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Defra are collaborating on a major research project that aims to better understand the carbon abatement potential of resource efficiency measures in different sectors, including approaches which advance the circular economy. The work will inform future policy development and will help us better understand the true potential of resource efficiency measures in reducing demand for natural resources and the amount of waste being produced.

6. Led by the Office for National Statistics ( ONS)-Integrated Data Service ( IDS), HM Revenue & Customs ( HMRC) and the UK Circular Economy Hub ( CE-Hub), phase 1 of a pilot project to improve data traceability and transparency in the circular economy has concluded. Analysis and conclusions from phase 1 will form the basis of a UK Circular Economy framework, with the objective of creating a pioneering data pooling network that securely brings together public and private data from across industry, government and academia.

5. Construction

Our aim: to reduce construction waste and increase the reuse of construction materials at their highest value. This means designing buildings for adaptability and deconstruction, increased reuse of components and use of materials that can be reused and recycled and improved demolition systems.

A report by Arup and the Ellen MacArthur foundation found the UK construction sector uses the most resources and generates the most waste of any sector, producing over 60 million tonnes of non-hazardous waste each year in England, with up to 15% of materials being wasted during the construction process. Defra's UK Statistics on Waste show although around 90% of construction waste is recycled much of this is downcycled - used to backfill holes on sites or crushed into aggregate - which is inefficient in terms of the energy used to create these materials, and carbon emissions.

On a global level, data from the United Nation Environment Programme's Global Status Report shows the manufacture of construction materials is responsible for 11% of CO2 emissions. Much of the focus on emissions in the built environment has been on operational energy use. But data from the Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products shows at least 25%, and in some cases as much as 60%, of a building's whole life emissions derive from its materials.

These emissions can be reduced through designing buildings so they can be repurposed and disassembled, optimising material usage, using more low-carbon materials (such as using timber where safe to do so), and increasing reuse. According to a Leeds University study, in this way, we could reduce carbon emissions by approximately 80 MtCO2e between 2023 and 2032. The emissions cited in the report are the result of a considerable amount of work that has been carried out by the University of Leeds to collate individual carbon footprints to an economy wide-model to enable estimates of national impacts from resource efficiency. It has been used to provide recommendations to the Climate Change Committee and underpins the UK government annual consumption-based emissions inventory but they remain classed as experimental statistics and do not directly correspond with territorial emissions defined under the Kyoto protocol.

Further modelling by the Waste and Resources Action Programme and the University of Leeds found a potential reduction to territorial greenhouse gas emissions relating to construction of 151 MtCO2e between 2021 and 2050, from selected resource efficiency policy options. The same options could achieve a reduction to global greenhouse gas emissions resulting from UK consumption of 470 MtCO2e as well as reducing raw material consumption by 2,900 Mt over the same period, according to the model.

Technically, it is possible to reuse many elements of buildings, from structural elements such as steel beams, bricks, and roofing, to fixtures such as windows. This is subject to meeting the requirements of building regulations to ensure they are used safely and to meet the increasing performance standards expected of buildings. Unpublished data from the University of Exeter found reusing materials is substantially better than recycling in terms of reducing emissions. One study shows that emissions can reduce by 13% to 31%, depending on material type, if 30% of material was reused.

The sector will need to meet the challenges of Net Zero and reducing waste, by designing buildings to be disassembled rather than demolished, and to be adaptable to meet changing future needs. Waste also needs to be properly managed during the construction process, such that different waste streams are properly segregated, and that recyclable or reusable materials are identified.

Change is already underway, as companies work to reduce their waste and set Net Zero targets, and a digital transformation, expected to improve data on our building stock, using technology such as Building Information Modelling. Initiatives across the sector seek to drive the transition towards circularity, for example, the Major Infrastructure - Resource Optimisation Group ( MI-ROG), a grouping of major infrastructure operators, exploring opportunities to share materials between projects through a "Resource Exchange Mechanism". The Steel Construction Institute published a protocol to encourage reuse of structural steel. BREEAM, Home Quality Mark and other sustainability assessment schemes seek to encourage better practice by awarding credits for cutting waste generation.

Through the Green Construction Board Taskforce, a Routemap to Zero Avoidable Waste in Construction was published in July 2021. This sets out actions for pre-construction design, use of materials in construction and demolition practices.

The Aggregates Levy, introduced in 2002, remains in place after a review. It is intended in to encourage the reuse of aggregate materials. The levy is charged at a flat rate for every tonne of rock, sand and gravel extracted.

The National Model Design Code (2021) provides tools and guidance for planning authorities to embed circular economy principles and other environmental goals. Public sector construction projects have to comply with Building Information Modelling Level Two.

What the government will do

To embed action to increase resource efficiency within the wider policy framework in an integrated way:

1. As part of the four-year £30 million National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research ( NICER) Programme, concluding at the end of 2024 outlined in chapter 1, we will continue to support the Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres for Mineral-based Construction Materials ( ICEC-MCM) and Metals (CircularMetal). The Programme is made up of 5 Circular Economy Research Centres, each focused on a speciality material flow. Each centre aim to deliver research, innovation, and the evidence base for their material to move the UK towards a resilient UK circular economy.

2. Through the Green Construction Board, Government will promote adoption of strategies aligned with the Routemap to Net Zero Avoidable Waste in Construction. We will carefully monitor progress against key targets in the routemap to eliminate all but hazardous construction and demolition waste to landfill and reduce soil to landfill by 75%, ultimately working towards zero avoidable construction and demolition waste by 2050.

3. Government will work with industry to explore what policy interventions would best support a shift in the design of construction products to encourage greater reuse and use of recycled materials. This could potentially include options like, resource efficiency product standards or information schemes with regard to existing Environmental Product Declarations. This could be to ensure, for instance that windows are designed so they can be dismantled to preserve the glass, or precast concrete panels designed so that they can be reused, as well as encouraging a shift towards recyclable materials. However, as with the other policy suggestions throughout this document, this would be subject to decisions at the next Spending Review to be able to take this work forward.

4. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will continue to support local authorities to promote sustainable resource use through planning. The National Planning Policy for Waste requires that when determining planning applications for non-waste development, local planning authorities should, to the extent appropriate to their responsibilities, ensure that the handling of waste arising from the construction and operation of development maximises reuse and recovery opportunities, and minimises off-site disposal. Additionally, chapter 2 of the National Planning Policy Framework ( NPPF) recognises the need for the planning system to consider the prudent use of natural resources and waste minimisation in the pursuit of sustainable development. The National Planning Policy Framework and the National Planning Policy for Waste are material considerations for local planning authorities when making decisions on planning applications and when preparing their local plans.

5. In accordance with the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will develop proposals for demand-side measures intended to grow the market for low emissions industrial products which include reusable products and secondary materials. The measures include product standards and labelling which could help buyers of industrial products, including the construction sector, better understand the embodied emissions of the products they buy. The then Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy conducted a Call for Evidence Towards a market for low emissions industrial products in December 2021, to gather information from stakeholders on how low emissions products can be defined, and the emissions reporting required to achieve this. A summary of responses was published in July 2022. In March 2023, the government published an exploratory consultation considering a range of potential policy measures to mitigate carbon leakage risk in the future and ensure UK industry has the optimal policy environment to decarbonise. Potential policies include a carbon border adjustment mechanism ( CBAM), mandatory product standards ( MPS), and other policy measures to help grow the market for low carbon products, as well as embodied emissions reporting that could support the implementation of these policies.

6. Cabinet Office will continue to take forward green procurement in accordance with the National Procurement Policy Statement ( NPPS), which established principles that contracting authorities must consider in their procurement including reducing emissions. Additionally, Cabinet Office Policy Procurement Note ' Taking account of Carbon Reduction Plans in the procurement of major government contracts' (PPN06/21) requires bidders for major government contracts to commit to achieving Net Zero in their operations by 2050. This applies to Central Government Departments (plus Executive Agencies and non-departmental public bodies).

7. Government committed in the Net Zero Strategy to work with industry to improve reporting on embodied carbon in the built environment and explore maximum levels for new builds in the future. Following this, government announced its intention to consult in 2023 on our approach to the assessment and reduction of embodied carbon. This is part of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities' wider work, including the Future Homes and Buildings Standards programmes to ensure all new buildings are aligned with a zero-carbon future. The UK plays a leading role in the Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative, which is an international initiative, focused on standardising carbon assessments throughout the lifecycle of industrial products, starting with steel, cement and concrete, establishing a low carbon standard for steel, concrete and cement, establishing internationally coordinated targets for embodied carbon in public construction and incentivise investment into low carbon industrial product development. As part of the Industrial Decarbonisation initiative, at COP26, in November 2021, the UK pledged, and encouraged other nations to sign up to work on the harmonisation of embodied emissions reporting, public construction practices and standard setting as well as setting a baseline and interim embodied carbon emission reduction aspiration for major public construction projects for 2030. DESNZ consulted on this pledge in the carbon leakage consultation that was published in March 2023.

8. Defra will publish a revised Code of Practice for the Sustainable Use of Soil on Construction Sites and begin development of a soil reuse and storage depot scheme in 2023. These will help prevent soil that would otherwise be classified as waste going to landfill and encourage remediation and re-use of soil. Defra will pilot the soil reuse and storage depot scheme by 2026.

Our aim: to support our waste reduction targets and Net Zero commitment, through reducing textiles going to residual waste. This means increasing product utilisation, diverting products and materials from residual waste and stimulating a profitable textile recycling industry. We want to see our UK textiles and fashion industry leading the way on circularity through adopting circular business models such as resale, rental and repair, and investing in textiles reprocessing and recycling in alignment with the waste hierarchy.

Through the Net Zero Strategy, government has committed to the near elimination of municipal biodegradable waste to landfill from 2028 and we have set an Environment Act 2021 environmental target to halve residual waste (excluding major mineral wastes) kg per person by the year 2042. To deliver on our waste targets and Net Zero commitments, we need to significantly reduce textiles going to residual waste.

The fashion and textiles industry is resource intensive, consuming vast quantities of non-renewable natural resources and leading to high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and waste. These impacts are evident across the lifecycle from production to end of life.

The industry faces huge challenges. Data from Quantis estimated that the sector accounts for between 4% to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Extensive and often opaque international supply chains spanning multiple continents, provide challenges to transparency and traceability.

Textiles waste is significant. A 2017 Waste and Resources Action Programme report found that in England alone over 1 million tonnes of textiles were estimated to be disposed of in, household and commercial municipal residual waste, with clothing equating to almost 400,000 tonnes and non-clothing textiles almost 430,000 tonnes. This is equivalent to 4.2% of all municipal waste arising (by weight) and this material ends up going to landfill or incineration, contributing to waste sector emissions.

Keeping products and materials in circulation through reuse provides substantial environmental and economic benefits. A new life cycle based assessment study of the management of European used textiles found that producing a new t-shirt has approximately a 70 times larger environmental impact than a reused t-shirt (this is based on t-shirts of higher grades, crème and B-grade). More than 3kg of CO2 is saved for each medium-high value t-shirt that is reused.

While we have a strong collection system in the UK with 620,000 tonnes of used textiles separately collected for reuse and recycling each year, data from the Waste and Resources Action Programme shows 60% is exported. We need to increase domestic sorting and reprocessing of textiles not suitable for reuse to capitalise on the growing demand for recycled content and extract maximum value from material flows.

Recycling textiles not appropriate for reuse is a vital route to keeping material out of landfill and incineration. However, economies of scale for textiles recycling do not currently exist. Research by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation found that globally less than 1% of the material used to produce clothing is recycled back into clothing. Most textiles recycling involves shredding material for low value uses including rags for manufacturing industries or insulation.

As noted in the Waste and Resources Action Programme's Textiles Market Situation Report resale, rental and repair diversify business portfolios and enable income streams that are not dependent on the extraction of virgin materials. The Business of Fashion reported that the global resale market for clothing will reach $57 billion in sales by 2025, up from $27 billion today. Some businesses are already making moves in this direction, for instance in Selfridges' first annual Project Earth Report in September 2022 announced that by 2030, 45% of transactions will come from circular products and services, meaning resale, rental, repair, refill or products with recycled material. We want to see many more providing circular products and services, helping consumers access better value.

In 2021 we funded Textiles 2030, the UK Sustainable Textile Action Plan; a voluntary business programme run by the Waste and Resources Action Programme, with signatories representing more than 62% of clothing placed on the UK market. Signatories commit to ambitious, science-based 2030 targets, including a 50% reduction in carbon footprint of new products and 30% reduction in water footprint. Through collaboration, signatories will deliver the Textiles 2030 Roadmap, which is guiding business action towards the 2030 targets in 3 main areas:

design for circularity (longevity, recyclability, improved fibres)

circular business models (resale, rental, subscription, repair, upcycling)

closing the loop on materials (recycling clothes back into clothes)

We have worked with industry to drive voluntary action since 2012 through the Waste and Resources Action Programme. The Sustainable Clothing Action Plan ( SCAP 2020) preceded Textiles 2030 and ran from 2012 to 2020. found signatories reduced their water and carbon footprints per tonne of clothing by 18.2% and 21.6% respectively (to a 2012 baseline), exceeding the 15% target. Reduction in waste was less successful, with a 2.1% reduction in waste produced over whole product lifecycles against a target of 3.5%. Learnings from the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan 2020 have been applied to Textiles 2030. The Sustainable Clothing Action Plan's final report found signatories reduced their water and carbon footprints per tonne of clothing by 18.2% and 21.6% respectively (to a 2012 baseline), exceeding the 15% target. Reduction in waste was less successful, with a 2.1% reduction in waste produced over whole product lifecycles against a target of 3.5%. Learnings from SCAP 2020 have been applied to Textiles 2030.

The Competition and Markets Authority ( CMA) is concerned about the way that products are being marketed to customers as eco-friendly. Their review of the fashion sector and potentially misleading environmental claims will continue as the Competition and Markets Authority will also consider whether to open further investigations. The Competition Markets Authority have also produced guidance to companies in all sectors about 'greenwashing' claims.

What the government will do

For the purpose of the measures set out below, textiles have been defined as clothing and household textiles that are flat, but this is not an exhaustive list, and scope will be considered in the future work below. These proposals will be subject to the outcomes of current and future spending allocations, and availability of Parliamentary time and support.

1. The UK Research and Innovation National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research programme mentioned in chapter 1 also includes a £2.5M circular economy innovation fund to support projects aligned with the programme. One example of these is £150,000 for an industry-led pilot to develop a model for an Extended Producer Responsibility scheme for textiles . This pilot will be developed in collaboration with leading trade bodies including the UK Fashion and Textiles Association, the British Fashion Council and the British Retail Consortium. We will work with industry to facilitate an industry led approach for holding producers responsible for the full net costs of managing the textiles waste they generate and will assess the costs and benefits of this approach as part of longer-term policy development.

2. Develop a textiles waste hierarchy to provide robust guidance to businesses managing textiles and fashion products and material. We will explore putting the textiles hierarchy on a firm statutory footing, starting by considering the measures set out below.

3. Subject to an impact assessment, we will explore the potential of the following measures for certain non-domestic premises to support the textiles waste hierarchy and aim to consult in 2024. This includes, but is not limited to:

a requirement to present reusable and recyclable textiles for separate collection and for the collecting organisation to separately collect and store until treating in accordance with the waste hierarchy, by sorting for reuse and recycling

requiring businesses over a certain size to provide customer take back systems for used textiles. We will also explore how to encourage online-only companies to partner with brick-and-mortar businesses to ensure the costs of implementing take back schemes are proportionate

banning separately collected material from being sent to landfill and energy from waste without prior sorting. This would bring into scope the destruction of products and material that can be reused, redistributed and recycled, such as returns, surplus and unsold stock

We will also consider whether wider measures to reduce waste generation would be helpful.

4. Enhance voluntary action to reduce textiles waste by continuing to fund Textiles 2030 to reduce carbon and water footprints and accelerate action on circularity. We will seek to expand the programme to tackle issues such as overproduction and waste. Initially this will be by driving voluntary standardised measurement and reporting of waste generation across the supply chain, with an initial focus on unsold and surplus stock. Once a voluntary approach is established, we will evaluate the benefits and methodology to explore whether mandatory reporting of waste is required.

5. We have funded the Interdisciplinary Textiles Circularity Centre, a 4-year, £5.4 million research programme to harness academic excellence and industry expertise to boost innovation in the development of renewable textiles materials from post-consumer textiles and household waste.

6. Through the UK Research and Innovation's Circular Fashion Programme, government will fund £15 million to drive action to tackle some of the industry's biggest challenges in adopting circular business models. This initial 2-year programme includes £4 million for a sorting and recycling demonstrator, £6 million for enabling research, £2 million for an industry led Innovation Network, and £3 million for projects partnering UK fashion companies with UK universities to lead research and innovation. The programme will act as a basis to initiate a 10-year vision of transforming the fashion and textiles sector, supporting the adoption of economically viable and scalable circular models by 2032.

7. Furniture and furnishings

Our aim: to stimulate more sustainable design and enable enhanced collection, reuse, and repair services with a supporting infrastructure, whilst also building up skills and supporting the levelling up agenda.

Data from the Waste and Resources Action Programme shows over 861,000 tonnes of furniture (including mattresses, carpets and underlay) were estimated to be disposed of in household and commercial municipal residual waste in England (2017), around 3.4% by weight of all municipal waste arising. Fly-tipping is common for some items like mattresses, which we are tackling through the increased penalties set out in the Prime Minister's Anti- Social Behaviour Action Plan, more details are set out in Chapter 10. According to Defra statistics, the Greenhouse Gas ( GHG) emissions associated with the consumption of UK residents on furniture, furnishings and carpets, wherever in the world these emissions arise along the supply chain, was 8.7 MtCO2e in 2019, almost 1.5% of the UK's total consumption-based footprint.

Modelling by the Waste and Resources Action Programme and the University of Leeds (2022) found a potential reduction to territorial greenhouse gas emissions relating to Furniture of 4 MtCO2e between 2021 and 2050, based on the introduction of resource efficiency policies. The modelling also indicated a reduction to global greenhouse gas emissions resulting from UK consumption of 44 MtCO2e as well as reducing raw material consumption by 95 Mt over the same period.

For those consumers and businesses who want to give their furniture a second life, avenues to donate or sell on items have grown substantially since the Waste Prevention Programme in 2013. The Reuse Network estimate that they have provided reused furniture to 1.5 million households, leading to £427 million in savings (includes savings resulting from reuse of electrical appliances as well as furniture, however furniture makes up the vast majority of items). Several barriers limit waste prevention and reuse in the furniture industry, including a lack of storage.

Data shows an estimated 80 to 90% of the environmental impacts in the lifecycle of furniture items are linked to the design and components of the products. The variety of materials, prevalence of composite materials and sandwich designs (a sandwich-structured composite is a special class of composite materials that is fabricated by attaching two thin but stiff skins to a lightweight but thick core such as wood replacements, mattresses), and high chemical content (such as flame retardants and persistent organic pollutants) can significantly limit opportunities at end of life.

A rise in a disposable culture, and a lack of time, skills, and repair services as well as a perception that "second hand" is inferior continue to encourage the buying of new items rather than extending the usable lifetime of existing products.

Many businesses are taking action to reduce waste including through trade associations, reuse initiatives, innovative business models, sustainability programmes, and investment in research and reuse organisations. The Furniture Industry Research Association ( FIRA), for example, is helping to collect evidence and support businesses to trial new models and action-based research projects, and the National Bed Federation's Eco Design Principles and assessment toolkit enable producers to score their products against ecodesign criteria. Some businesses, such as Ikea, have gone as far as setting highly ambitious targets and implementing extensive design, reuse, and repair initiatives.

We have undertaken research to explore requirements for improved labelling and consumer information for furniture, to support more sustainable product choices and is due to be published in 2023.

Government has set an example through its Greening Government Commitments and Government Buying Standards, for stationary, equipment, and furniture.

In addition, all Central Government Departments, their Executive Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies should apply Procurement Policy Note 06/21 in-scope procurements of £5 million per annum and above. When applied, this policy requires all suppliers bidding for the procurement to produce and publish a Carbon Reduction Plan. Supplier's Carbon Reduction Plans confirm their commitment to achieving Net Zero by 2050, detail their greenhouse gas emissions in the UK (including emissions associated with waste generated by their operations) and detail the environmental management measures that they have in place. The adoption of this measure will increase the number of suppliers making public commitments to decarbonise and achieve Net Zero by 2050. As research notes it is also hoped that it will lead to greater reuse and recycling in the sector as suppliers take steps to meet these commitments and work with their supply chain partners to decarbonise their operations.

Donating all of the IKEA furniture from the COP26 summit to homeless charities for reuse.

What the government will do

To take forward our commitment to improve waste prevention in the furniture and furnishings sector as outlined in the Resources and Waste Strategy, we will:

1. Encourage sharing of best practice on product design and take-back systems, through trade associations, voluntary agreements, and industry standards, such as initiatives to reduce waste mattresses led by the National Bed Federation.

2. As set out in Chapter 3 we plan to develop best practice guidance for local authorities to encourage reuse through Household Waste Recycling Centres and bulky waste collections and enhance the role of local communities, businesses and social enterprise in achieving more reuse.

3. In accordance with our commitments in the Resources and Waste Strategy, and as set out in our cross-cutting approach to designing out waste in Chapter 2, we will consider policy options including ecodesign, consumer information and Extended Producer Responsibility for furniture. The aim of these would be to:

reduce furniture waste and increase recycling by, for example, incentivising more environmentally sound design of furniture and furnishings

address issues with funding and space at end-of-use, as well as ease of dismantling, cleaning of fabrics and chemical content

4. We will develop the evidence base further to support this activity, and we have commissioned research, to be completed in 2023, to help us assess the most appropriate policy options and the scope of a potential policy framework, seeking to include at least the most problematic products such as mattresses, for example.

5. Continue to address green procurement making use of the National Procurement Policy Statement ( NPPS). This is relevant to furniture on the government estate.

6. Consult on proposals to remove fees for consumers to have bulky domestic furniture collected from their homes by 2025. These may be standalone proposals or could be considered in conjunction with other measures referenced elsewhere in this programme.

8. Electrical and electronic products

Our aim: to increase reuse, repair and remanufacture of electronic and electrical products, and develop options to design out waste using ecodesign principles, as well as improving levels of collection of Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment.

Data estimates that the UK generated approximately 23.9kg per capita of electrical and electronic waste in 2019. The UK has performed well in comparison to EU member states in terms of collections for recycling. Of the waste electrical and electronic equipment generated in 2017, data shows:

42% was treated and reported within the system

approximately 34% was likely to be treated or reused in some way but not reported

around a quarter (24%) was potentially lost to the residual waste stream

The challenge is to increase waste prevention - reuse, repair and remanufacture. It is estimated that almost a quarter of electronic products people throw away could be suitable for reuse. Preventing electronic waste can help cut carbon emissions. A study shows resource extraction for, and manufacturing of, electronic products such as mobile phones contributes to more than 50% of their total lifetime CO2 emissions. The rise in purchases of electronic goods is a significant driver of emissions globally.

Rising consumption globally has a bearing on resource security: Electrical and Electronic Equipment contains valuable critical minerals like gold, lithium and platinum. Diverting Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment from landfill and incineration by remanufacture, repair, and recycling, retains these materials within the economy. Data shows the value of materials in global e-waste stood at roughly $57 billion in 2019.

Increasing rates of reuse, repair and remanufacture remains a challenge because of the dominant linear business models geared towards high sales volume and low upfront costs. Moreover, high costs, due to labour costs and complex logistics, discourage consumers from repairing products. A lack of consumer trust in claims of durability, reparability and in second-hand goods as well as a lack of awareness of how to treat products at end of life are a further challenge.

Modelling by the Waste and Resources Action Programme and the University of Leeds (2022) found a potential reduction to territorial greenhouse gas emissions relating to Electrical and Electronic Equipment of 0.7 MtCO2e between 2021 and 2050, based on the introduction of certain resource efficiency policies. The modelling also indicated a reduction to global greenhouse gas emissions resulting from UK consumption of 17 MtCO2e as well as reducing raw material consumption by 23 Mt over the same period.

The system established by the UK Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations has fostered improvements to levels of collection and proper treatment of electrical and electronic equipment. This includes use of funds raised through the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Compliance Fees on awareness raising and local projects designed to support reuse and recycling. Additionally, as of 1 January 2021, retailers who sell over £100,000 of electrical and electronic equipment annually are required to provide take-back systems for customers that purchase new equipment.

Some progress was made on product design and a shift higher up the waste hierarchy, through the Waste and Resources Action Programme-led voluntary Sustainable Electricals Action Plan (subsequently renamed the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Sustainability Action Plan or 'ESAP' and later closed). This resulted in outputs including the Better Appliances Guides and guidance on how to improve product durability. Examples of recent industry initiatives include the Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances Know What's Watt campaign, focusing on extended appliance life through maintenance and repair.

The government introduced new ecodesign requirements for a range of industrial appliances, white goods, electronic displays and lighting products during 2021. These Ecodesign Regulations set higher Minimum Energy Performance Standards ( MEPS), as well as measures to increase the repairability and recyclability of products, including requirements relating to the availability of spare parts and repair instructions; the ease of disassembly; the provision of software and firmware updates.

In 2020 to 2021, the then Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Defra commissioned research to help identify energy-related products where the greatest opportunity lies for improvements in energy performance and to carry out an assessment of options relating to lifetime extension and resource efficiency of electricals. Two reports were produced, on energy efficiency aspects and on resource efficiency aspects. This research supplements the evidence gathered during the 2020 call for evidence on ecodesign for energy-related products by the then Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

In 2023 Defra published research into how eco-modulation could be implemented into the UK's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment system to incentivise better ecodesign of energy related products. It also explores options aimed at reducing the environmental impact of energy-related products across their lifecycle with particular focus on production and disposal.

What the government will do

To continue to embed the waste hierarchy and circular economy principles into sector and the existing Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment producer responsibility scheme, we will:

1. Consult in 2023 on reforms to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations. The consultation will explore ways to increase collections of waste electricals from households and businesses for reuse and recycling, including how to increase levels of consumer awareness about producer-financed responsible disposal options. It will consider how to ensure producers, including those selling electricals through online marketplaces, take greater responsibility for their products when they become waste. We also want to ensure that the future Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment system is compatible with our circular economy objectives and will gather views in a separate Call for Evidence as to how we can encourage better product design, more circular economy business models and increased levels of re-use through reforms of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment regulations'.

2. This will include options to tackle vapes, also known as e-cigarettes, which have been around since the early 2000s and were designed to be used as a smoking cessation tool, to help people to quit smoking. Vapes were originally designed to be reusable meaning people could invest in a vape device and then refill and recharge for repeated use. Recently, there has been a surge in popularity of so-called disposable vapes (or single use vapes). They are used by a range of demographics, including those under eighteen. The rise in popularity of disposable vapes amongst those under eighteen is of particular concern to the government. In response to these concerns the Department of Health and Social Care published a Call for Evidence, which closed on 6 June 2023, that aims to gather evidence on the impacts of vaping on those under eighteen and the environment and inform future policy interventions.

Disposable vapes contain plastic, lithium and other rare earth elements meaning that if these products are not disposed of and recycled properly, there is a loss of critical resources. Vapes also contain lithium-ion batteries that can pose a fire risk if the waste is not managed appropriately. Ensuring that vapes are disposed of appropriately would therefore lead to numerous benefits to the natural environment.

In our forthcoming consultation on reforming the existing producer responsibility regime for waste electrical and electronic equipment we will bring forward proposals to ensure that these products are dealt with appropriately at the end of their life financed by the vape industry. This will include strengthening the existing take-back requirements placed on retailers and internet sellers of electricals.

3. Work with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on future implementation of minimum ecodesign requirements in Great Britain as set out in the energy-related products policy framework, published in November 2021.

4. Consider ways in which to provide consumers and businesses with information on the environmental performance of electrical and electronic products, focussing on material resource efficiency aspects such as durability, reparability and recyclability. Options include rating schemes and other labelling options focused on extending the life of products and would complement existing energy labelling requirements. Initial research has been completed and will be published in 2023. In tandem, we will also explore the role of product passports that relate to critical mineral content.

5. We will continue to work with the Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre for Technology Metals (Met4Tech), as part of the four-year £30 million National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research ( NICER) Programme, concluding at the end of 2024.

9. Road vehicles

Our aim: explore means of increasing reuse, repair, and remanufacture, in addition to design considerations such as light-weighting, to reduce waste in this sector and contribute towards Net Zero by 2050.

Data from The Use Less Group shows the extraction and processing of materials and the manufacturing process to make a standard combustion engine car contribute approximately a fifth of the emissions resulting from its use, over a lifespan of 14 years. These are significant: global emissions associated with the manufacture of all new cars that were registered in the UK in 2019 was between 10 to 13 MtCO2e (Defra estimate based on evidence from The Use Less Group; the Waste and Resources Action Programme and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders).

Modelling by the Waste and Resources Action Programme and the University of Leeds (2022) found a potential reduction to territorial greenhouse gas emissions relating to vehicle production of 26 MtCO2e between 2021 and 2050, based on the introduction of resource efficiency policies. The modelling also indicated a potential reduction to global greenhouse gas emissions resulting from UK consumption of 75 MtCO2e as well as reducing raw material consumption by 108 Mt over the same period.

Meanwhile, the transition from vehicles powered purely by internal combustion engines to hybrid and fully electric powertrains, or other alternatives, is accelerating. The government has announced the end of sales of new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2030. This transition creates new challenges regarding reuse as well as management of batteries, and it is essential that new EV models and technologies contribute toward the shift to a circular and resource efficient economy.

The continued development, promotion and implementation of innovative retrofit technology is important for extending the life of some vehicles which otherwise might be scrapped. Retrofit technology can minimise a vehicles air quality impact and will help bridge the gap in the journey towards zero emissions by 2050.

Regulatory measures have, to date, focused on operational energy use and end of life, with targets for recovery and recycling. We have seen an improvement in the treatment of scrap vehicles and dramatically increased recycling and recovery rates. Data shows the recycling rate for end of life vehicles rose 20% from 1999 to 2018, with overall waste to landfill falling more than 95% over the same period.

In terms of reuse, the active domestic market for second-hand cars and car parts, means vehicles are routinely repaired and maintained. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders reported almost 7 million used car transactions in 2022. Additionally, the sector has seen a rise in resource efficient business models including rental and car clubs, which deliver environmental benefits whilst also potentially reducing the cost of living. These business models are growing in popularity. Published data shows active car club members standing at around 300,000 in 2022.

Whilst there is evidence of positive trends regarding waste prevention in the automotive sector, there are continuing challenges. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency vehicle licensing statistics show the number of cars on UK roads is increasing, from around 24 million in 2000 to around 33 million in 2021.

Greater resource efficiency in vehicle manufacturing and use can be achieved by supporting the design of lighter vehicles, with the dual benefit of decreasing the demand for input materials and fuel consumption. Reducing the quantity of steel, aluminium and other materials used has been estimated (Leeds University) to have the potential to cut carbon emissions by 8.49 MtCO2e over 2023 to 2032. Designing them to be more durable and longer lasting would also reduce the demand for materials and energy for manufacturing. The same study concluded that keeping cars in use for four more years could reduce carbon emissions by 9.15 MtCO2e between 2023 and 2032. However, there are potential trade-offs with improved operational energy efficiency and other standards. The emissions cited in the report are the result of a considerable amount of work that has been carried out by the University of Leeds to collate individual carbon footprints to an economy wide-model to enable estimates of national impacts from resource efficiency. It has been used to provide recommendations to the Climate Change Committee and underpins the UK government annual consumption-based emissions inventory but they remain classed as experimental statistics and do not directly correspond with territorial emissions defined under the Kyoto protocol

The benefits of remanufacturing components is also evident. This can avoid in excess of 90% of embodied material energy, emissions and demand on new material inputs compared to new production. It has been reported that remanufacturing can be twice as profitable as manufacturing. It also presents an opportunity to create quality jobs because in most cases additional process steps are required, including evaluation, cleaning, and additional quality testing. The Vehicle Recyclers Association also operates a certification scheme for recyclers giving confidence, and warranties, to consumers and businesses in choosing used parts over new.

The government's Future of Mobility: Urban Strategy published in March 2019, set out 9 key principles for shaping the future of urban mobility. One of these key principles is that mobility innovation must help to reduce congestion through more efficient use of limited road space, for example through sharing rides, increasing occupancy or consolidating freight.

The government and industry are working in partnership to maximise the opportunities from the transition to zero emission vehicles. Action is focused on products, technologies, and the electric vehicle supply chain, and delivering market transformation, including charging infrastructure and consumer adoption.

What the government will do

To support the resource efficiency of the sector taking on board the ongoing transition to cleaner vehicles, we will:

1. Bring forward proposals to reform the batteries regulations by the end of 2023, seeking to legislate from 2024 onwards with partial implementation from 2025. These reforms will allow us to address imbalances in the current operation of the regulations, to keep pace with progress in battery technology and to position the UK's regulatory regime to capitalise on the expected growth in electric vehicle batteries. We will also seek to consult on potential reforms to the End of Life Vehicles regulatory regime. This will begin with improvements to the existing processes being trialled from summer 2023 and, if successful, expanded from 2024, and with a consultation on reforming the wider regulatory regime in 2025.

2. Commit £541 million to the Faraday Battery Challenge, to support the commitment to transition to electric vehicles by 2035 and to put the UK at the global forefront of the design, development, and manufacturing of electric batteries. We are also supporting the innovation, infrastructure and regulatory environment needed for a UK battery recycling industry, including reuse in second life applications and the efficient recycling of valuable rare earths and materials as part of a circular economy. The Faraday Institution's £10m 'ReLib' research project is developing the technological, economic and legal infrastructure to allow high percentages of the materials in lithium ion batteries at the end of their first life to be reused or recycled.

3. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will work with stakeholders across government, industry, and academia to explore the potential for greater resource efficiency and circular economy in the automotive sector, and the role of measures such as ecodesign in achieving this. To support this, the joint research project set out in chapter 1 includes vehicles as one of its focus sectors.

10. Packaging, plastics and single use items

Our aim: to encourage a shift away from hard to recycle and single-use products and packaging, and support research and innovation into more sustainable alternatives and systems, reducing litter and plastic pollution as well as conserving material resources.

At present, under the producer responsibility system for packaging obligated producers must take action to minimise product packaging, reduce how much packaging waste goes to landfill, and increase the amount that is recycled ( source producer responsibility obligations (packaging waste) regulations 2007 and the packaging (essential requirements) regulations 2015). Whilst the amount of packaging waste that is recycled has increased, the current system has shortcomings. More action is required to reduce unnecessary packaging and increase the use of reusable packaging and packaging that can be recycled easily. We will change this through our plans for an Extended Producer Responsibility ( EPR) scheme for packaging.

Reuse remains a priority focus area for WRAP and the UK Plastics Pact. After supporting a series of both member-led and WRAP-led packaging reuse and refill trials during 2021 to 2022, the UK Plastics Pact is consolidating the knowledge and insights gathered through these initiatives, to move reuse to the next stage of scaled implementation. In response to the call for collaboration among members and stakeholders, to address some of the challenges identified in testing phases, WRAP is bringing together a diverse stakeholder group, drawn both from the engaged UK Plastics Pact members who are actively looking to pursue reuse, and across the wider reusable packaging sector establishing the necessary circular infrastructure elements, to develop and articulate a pathway for reuse and refill to become a widely accessible, mainstream packaging choice for UK shoppers. Current work is focused on the standardisation elements appropriate to large scale implementation of reuse (prefill and refill), identification of the key un-lockers to accelerate the transition to reuse both for business and citizens, and the methods by which to measure and demonstrate the benefits of reusable packaging, both from an environmental and economic perspective, within a system that is rapidly shifting towards circularity. WRAP will launch a Reusable Packaging Roadmap for the UK and a series of category-focused reusable packaging blueprints by Summer 2024.

However, there are more opportunities for businesses to reduce waste and litter by preventing products from becoming waste in the first place. Actions that could be taken by businesses include:

1. Increasing the sale of unpackaged products: advice from the Waste and Resources Action Programme and the UK Plastics Pact in February 2022 provides evidence that supports selling fresh fruit and vegetables loose.

2. Providing and using refill systems and services. The Waste and Resources Action Programme is supporting UK Plastics Pact members to develop reuse and refill systems. This includes work to develop a blueprint for standardising reuse and refill systems and achieving this activity at scale, developing guidance and providing UK Plastics Pact members with one-to-one support on piloting reuse and refill packaging systems or encouraging reuse behaviours, with the aim of scaling up reuse by 2025.

3. Removing the worst offending products from the market (for example, plastic straws, microbeads and plastic stirrers) that is those that cannot be reused or recycled.

4. Designing products and packaging to reduce the likelihood of them becoming waste.

These actions will help reduce litter, including marine litter. We are also tackling litter by delivering on the commitments set out in Litter Strategy for England. For example, in recent years we have launched a national anti-litter campaign with Keep Britain Tidy and published guidance for councils on the provision of litter bins, which we supported with nearly £1 million for the purchase of new bins. The Prime Minister's Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan sets out how we will go further by supporting councils to take tougher action against those who litter and fly-tip. This includes significantly raising the upper limit on fixed penalty notices this year (to £500 for littering and £1,000 for fly-tipping). It also outlines, subject to consultation with key stakeholders, that revenue from these fines will be reinvested locally in clean up and enforcement - meaning perpetrators pay for local councils to continue toughening their approach in future years.

As well as consulting on Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and a Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers, government introduced a world-leading tax on plastic packaging in April 2022 which applies to businesses producing or importing plastic packaging which do not meet a minimum threshold of at least 30% recycled content. This is helping to create demand for recycled plastic, is stimulating innovation and investment in reprocessing, and supporting increased recycling.

We introduced one of the world's toughest bans on microbeads in rinse-off personal care products, preventing billions of these tiny plastic beads from entering the ocean each year, and brought in measures to restrict the supply of single use plastic straws, cotton buds and stirrers in October 2020.

Building on the success of our single-use carrier bag charge, in May 2021 we increased the charge to 10p and extended it to all retailers to create a level playing field for all businesses. Since the introduction of a charge, single use carrier bag sales have reduced by 97% in the main supermarket retailers by 2021 to 2022. In addition, we have taken powers in the Environment Act 2021 to enable us to place charges on other single-use items, made from any material, to encourage businesses and citizens to shift towards reusable products. This will be a valuable tool in targeting throwaway culture and transitioning to a circular economy.

What the government will do

To support the achievement of the above we propose to:

1. Build on our restrictions on the supply of single-use plastic straws, cotton buds and drink stirrers by banning the supply of other single-use plastic items such as single-use plastic plates, cutlery, balloon sticks and expanded and extruded polystyrene food and drinks containers from October 2023.

2. In the government response to the call for evidence on commonly littered and problematic plastic items, we noted evidence provided by respondents on other items to inform future policy interventions. As stated in the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023, we will explore options further, including with stakeholders, for the potential for technological innovation in the production of coffee cups, and behavioural science in how they are used.

3. Following its consultation in 2021 government will introduce Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging payments from October 2025.

4. Consider measures to encourage the use of reusable and refillable packaging. This includes completing the review of the Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 2015 and considering the extent to which measures could be introduced under packaging Extended Producer Responsibility or other means to incentivise more reuse and refill of packaging.

5. Continue to support research and innovation. We are funding research into alternative materials including easier to recycle plastics, through the £60 million Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Fund and the £20 million Plastics Research and Innovation Fund and other funds.

6. In the Plan for Water, the government announced that it will change the law to ban the sale of wet wipes containing plastic, subject to public consultation which will be launched in due course.

7. The government will support Water UK's communications campaign to 'Bin the Wipe'; and will write to the relevant producers and advertising authorities regarding the labelling of wet wipes as 'flushable'.

11. Food and drink

Our aim: Reduce food and drink waste in the home and across the supply chain, saving money and resources for businesses and consumers.

Food wasted through incorrect storage, insufficient knowledge or for other reasons is also a waste of all the efforts and resources put into its production - the water used to grow it, the emissions from its transport and the money used to buy it. Especially against a background of a cost of living crisis, it's critical that we make the best use of all the food we produce - if we can seize the opportunity to minimise waste throughout the supply chain and in the home, it will save consumers and businesses money and resources as well as protect our environment.

A report from the Waste and Resources Action Programme estimates 9.5 million tonnes of food and drink, after the farm gate, are wasted annually in the UK. This is worth around £19 billion, and it is estimated that around 70% of this is avoidable. Food waste occurring in households make up 70% of total UK food waste equating to 6.6 million tonnes while families could save themselves £60 per month using the food that could have been eaten but gets thrown away.

We have made substantial progress in reducing food waste in the UK. The report from the Waste and Resources Action Programme estimates, between 2007 and 2018, there was a 21% reduction in food waste per capita. The report from the Waste and Resources Action Programme estimates, between 2007 and 2018, there was a 21% reduction in food waste per capita.

As of September 2022, the Waste and Resources Action Programme report that 300 businesses and 51 supporting organisations had signed up to the Food Waste Reduction Roadmap. For retailers that provided comparable tonnage data for 2018 and 2021, there has been a reduction in food waste by over 19,000 tonnes (8%), equivalent to almost £62 million of food that did not end up as waste. For producers and manufacturers that provided comparable multi-year data, there has been a reduction overall in their edible food waste by 13,900 tonnes, or 1.4%, compared to their individual baselines (which range from 2015 to 2020).

Figures from 2022 show that food surplus redistribution has trebled between 2015 and 2021 with a cumulative total of 426,000 tonnes being redistributed over 6 years, equivalent to more than a billion meals. The biggest increase has been through charitable redistribution, with 6 times more food redistributed between 2015 and 2021.

Since the last Waste Prevention Programme was published in 2013, we found in the 2020 review that food, along with packaging, has accounted for most of the waste that has been prevented in the review period.

But there is no room for complacency as there are significant challenges remaining. The UK is committed to Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. In order to achieve this target of reducing retail and consumer food waste by 50% by 2030, based on a 2007 baseline, a Waste and Resources Action Programme report states at least another 1.8 million tonnes of food waste will need to be prevented annually by 2030 compared to 2018: around 1.3 million tonnes from reducing household food waste, over 90,000 tonnes from retail, around 250,000 tonnes from manufacturing and almost 200,000 tonnes from hospitality and food services. We also need to continue to tackle food waste in primary production.

The government has supported change through a series of voluntary agreements with food businesses and consumer campaigns since 2007, managed by the Waste and Resources Action Programme. The latest of these, the Courtauld Commitment 2030, brings together organisations across the supply chain to reduce food waste to approach the targets in Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. This includes action to push food waste up the Food and Drink Surplus and Waste Hierarchy and ensure that food surplus suitable for human consumption is redistributed. In terms of food waste prevention, Courtauld 2030 sets a target of a 50% per capita reduction in food waste between 2007 and 2030 in line with Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. Several working groups have been set up under the Courtauld banner to address this.

The government made a £15 million pilot fund available for 2019 to 2020 to support the redistribution of surplus food and reduce waste. The Resource Action Fund delivered by the Waste and Resources Action Programme included a programme of grants to provide small- and large-scale capital infrastructure and revenue support to organisations redistributing surplus food from the likes of retailers and food manufacturers.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme in their food waste in primary production in the UK report have estimated that £1.2 billion worth of food waste arises in UK primary production each year. Conversations with industry have suggested that a principal cause of food waste on farm is unfair business practices at the point of first sale, where unreasonably late cancellations or late specification changes can lead to produce being left unharvested or rotting in the field. The government is working with the Waste and Resources Action Programme to address issues across the supply chain. Defra have launched a review into supply chain fairness (in pigs, dairy, eggs and horticulture) to address some of these practices.

In 2021, government established the Hospitality Sector Council which was set up to co-create ideas and solutions with the hospitality sector to support the delivery of the Hospitality Strategy. This includes working with the Council to repurpose, reuse and divert food waste; support the sector to minimise use of single use items and packaging; and promoting and supporting innovative wetland systems for breweries to reduce water waste.

In the supply chain, more businesses from farm to retail, hospitality and food services need to be targeting, measuring and acting on food waste. The Institute of Grocery Distribution and the Waste and Resources Action Programme collaborated with Courtauld signatories to develop the Food Waste Reduction Roadmap. It showcases actions that large businesses should take to address food waste in their own operations, support their suppliers in taking action, engage with consumers and innovate to reduce their food waste. By the end of its fourth year, 300 of the largest UK food businesses across the supply chain had committed to the Roadmap. Of these, 221 provided evidence of measuring and acting on food waste. The ambition is to have all 600 large food businesses doing so by 2026.

To increase surplus food redistribution, and therefore prevent food waste, relationships between businesses and redistributors have been built and tools, guidance and funding for infrastructure (such as vehicles and refrigeration) has been provided to extract and supply more surplus food.

It is important that consumers are motivated and equipped to significantly reduce household food waste by changing their behaviours to prevent food from going to waste. This is a key area and one where we all have a role to play.

What the government will do

In order to deliver on our goals in the Resources and Waste Strategy to cut down food waste, achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 target, and work towards eliminating food waste to landfill by 2030, we propose to:

1. Provide over £1 million in funding in 2023 to 2024 to support consumer campaigns to help households waste less food. Reducing food waste in the home could help to save the average family with children up to £60 every month.

2. Through the Waste and Resources Action Programme we will tackle food waste through campaigns including Love Food Hate Waste and Food Waste Action Week, which support consumers to reduce food waste in their home, saving people money and bringing environmental benefits. For instance the "Unpacking the Opportunity" programme aims to increase the availability of loose fruit and vegetables in shops, saving plastic, waste and enabling people to buy what they need rather than in bulk, helping shoppers manage their budgets.

3. Promote collaboration and cooperation across the supply chain from retailers to manufacturers to the hospitality sector, between public, private and civil society actors through the support of the Courtauld 2030 Commitment and its programmes to reduce food waste. These include supporting the Food Waste Reduction Roadmap and the key tool to Target, Measure and Act on waste as well as specific working groups to promote change and inform policy.

4. Following on from consultation in summer 2022, consider options to improve voluntary food waste reporting by large food businesses in England. By increasing the number of businesses measuring and publicly reporting their food waste, we expect to drive action to reduce it. As outlined in our government response to the consultation which was published in July 2023.

5. Consistent recycling collections for households will come in after the implementation of the extended producer responsibility scheme. More details on this will be set out in due course.

6. Continue to work with the hospitality industry including through the Hospitality Sector Council on co-creating ideas and solutions to tackling waste and the Guardians of Grub campaign which is aimed at raising the profile of food waste prevention in the hospitality industry supporting the reduction of food waste in the preparation and serving of food.

12. Measuring, monitoring and evaluating progress

Our aim: monitor and evaluate our progress in preventing waste, not only to understand the benefits the current programme is bringing to the economy, society, and the natural world, including reducing carbon emissions, but also to help us develop ambitious, impactful, evidence-based programmes for the future.

We have indicators in place to capture the extent to which these desired changes are happening, and we intend to develop them further. We are also commissioning evaluation to provide independent evidence of our impact.

Our approach reflects our obligations under the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011 Part 2. To provide trend data over an extended period, we will continue to report against the measures from the last Waste Prevention Programme namely the macro-level metrics proposed for monitoring implementation of Maximising Resources, Minimising Waste. This will be integrated into wider resources and waste reporting. The metrics are:

1.Total waste arisings, including by sector (household, commercial and industrial, construction, demolition and excavation, and other) and on a per capita basis.

2. Total hazardous waste arisings, including by sector and per unit of Gross Value Added.

3. Waste arisings per unit of economic output, nationally and for the commerce, industry and construction sectors.

4. The numbers of enterprises, employment levels and Gross Value Added in the repair, reuse and leasing sectors. Capturing adequate existing data on these measures is likely to be very difficult, particularly for leasing and reuse, so it is likely to be necessary to commission new research in order to quantify these sectors of the economy.

5. Raw material consumption, including per unit of Gross Value Added and per capita.

6. Carbon footprint on a consumption basis, including per capita.

7. Greenhouse gas emissions associated with the management of waste - including landfill and Energy from Waste.

Through the new National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research ( NICER) programme, set up under the Strategic Priorities Fund, developed to match academic research to government strategic need, experts will support Defra in exploring the metrics and data requirements needed to support a circular economy.

Glossary

By-products

An inevitable result of certain types of material processing. In a circular economy, by-products are a feedstock for another production process.

Circular economy

An approach to managing resources which involves products and materials being kept in use for as long as possible, extracting maximum value from them. It means products and materials are reused, repaired, remanufactured, recycled or regenerated whenever possible and appropriate.

Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Embodied carbon

The CO2 emitted in the production of the materials that make up a product or building. It is estimated from the energy used to extract and transport raw materials as well as emissions from manufacturing processes.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

A powerful environmental policy approach through which a producer's responsibility for a product is extended to the post-use stage. This incentivises producers to design their products to make it easier for them to be reused, dismantled or recycled at end of life.

Gasification

Gasification is the partial combustion of a substance in an oxygen-deprived environment at temperatures normally greater than 650°C. Gasification produces a synthetic gas ('syngas'), and a residue (ash) of non-combustible materials. Gasification of waste is considered an energy recovery process under the Waste Hierarchy.

Product passports

Information about a product's key characteristics such as material composition, instructions for disassembly, repair and recovery of components or materials. Making such information publicly available can improve the environmental performance of products throughout their lifecycle, as well as helping inform purchasing decisions.

Pyrolysis

The thermal degradation of a substance in the absence of oxygen at temperatures normally between 300 to 850°C. Pyrolysis produces a pyrolysis oil, syngas, and a solid residue known as a pyrolysis char. Pyrolysis of waste is considered an energy recovery process under the Waste Hierarchy.

Recycling

Turning products at end of life back into materials which can be reused.

Refurbishment

Modification of an object that is waste or a product to increase or restore its performance and/or functionality or to meet applicable technical standards or regulatory requirements, with the result of making a fully functional product to be used for a similar purpose to the one that it was originally intended.

Source: International Resources Panel (2018) Redefining Value: the manufacturing revolution

Remanufacture

An industrial process that takes place within industrial or factory settings, in which cores are restored to original as-new condition and performance or better. The remanufacturing process is in line with specific technical specifications, including engineering, quality, and testing standards, and typically yields fully warranted products.

Source: International Resources Panel (2018) Redefining Value: the manufacturing revolution

Repair

Fixing a specified fault in an object that is a waste or a product and/or replacing defective components, in order to make the waste or product a fully functional product to be used for its originally intended purpose.

Source: International Resources Panel (2018) Redefining Value: the manufacturing revolution

Reuse

Using a product or material again for its original purpose, without any reprocessing taking place.

Resource Efficiency

The efficiency with which we use material resources in our economy, in terms of both consumption and production.

Resource Productivity

A measure of GDP for each unit of material resources used whether imported or in domestic consumption.

Retained European Union Law

A category of domestic law created at the end of the transition period. It is made up of certain pieces of EU legislation that were incorporated onto the UK statute book. REUL is also made up of certain domestic laws that implemented EU law and were preserved as REUL on the UK statute book.

Servitisation

Where a company retains ownership of their product and sells the product as a service to their customers, while retaining responsibility for the product's maintenance, therefore maximising the useful life of that product.

Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12)

'Ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns. [This includes SDG12.3, "By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses."]

Source: UN (Undated) Goal 12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Value Retention Processes (VRP)

Activities that involve or enable the extension of a product's service life beyond its original expected lifespan. These processes include reuse, repair, refurbishment, and remanufacturing.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP)

A climate action NGO, working with governments, companies and citizens globally, to tackle the causes of climate change and give the planet a sustainable future.

Source: WRAP (Undated) About us, wrap.org.uk

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The waste prevention programme for England: Maximising Resources, Minimising Waste

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As set out in our Environmental Improvement Plan resources on our islands - indeed on our planet - are finite and precious. Their extraction and manufacture can cause environmental harm. We want to make it easier for people to do the right thing especially against a background of a cost of living crisis, it's critical to maximise the use of these resources and minimise their waste.

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Artical 1                  Jennifer Mmbone:   30124075                        The hunt for a New Way to Tackle Clothing waste.                                                                                   

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Artical 1                  Jennifer Mmbone:   30124075                        The hunt for a New Way to Tackle Clothing waste.                                                                                   

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Harvard Reference: Wakefield, J. (2023) 'The Hunt for a New Way to Tackle Clothing Waste'. BBC News, 8 October. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66985595 (Accessed 9 February 2024).

Article Review:

The article above by BBC emphasizes the need for a new way to deal with clothing waste which is a major issue since most manmade fibres like nylon are not biodegradable. A scientific organization in the United States is looking for a way to make the clothing materials decompose quickly and among the approaches is to get rid of the toxic effects of dyes and clothing using biological materials to create new materials. There is a satellite photo of a mountain of waste clothes in Northern Chile that went viral in early 2023 and it raised concerns on the approaches to address the waste from the fashion industry since more clothes are being made than before but the people’s habit has changed since the clothes are being used less than end up as waste.

I chose this article since I found it critical for us to reflect on the impact the growth of the fashion industry is having on the environment and the approaches on how to deal with clothes that we intend to throw away. This is an area of concern since only 1% of the clothes thrown away are recycled into new ones meaning that today’s fashion is broken and we are experiencing fast fashion signified by an endless consumption of cheap clothes. This article brings us to a point where we should think of a new way to address clothing waste issues other than recycling hence bringing in the thought of technology that could enable these materials to decompose quickly.

However, I found the article biased when it says Qore company is working hand in hand with farmers to produce Qira, sweet corn not for human consumption which will be used for material and animal feed meaning they do not think that animal lives matter.

This article was published in October 2023 by a reputable organization and has brought a clear picture of what is happening to clothing waste. The article has also explained the process of decomposition to bring an understanding of why most of the clothing wastes are still in dumpsites and the need for technology to find a lasting solution. Therefore, the article is credible and reliable and has served its purpose in creating the real image of the problem and the need to bring in technology in handling waste clothing.

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Earlier this year, a satellite photo of a mountain of discarded clothes in Chile's Atacama Desert went viral.

Clearly visible from space, it once again raised questions about the amount of waste the fashion industry is creating, and what we can do about it.

While natural fibres such as cotton and wool will decompose, most manmade fibres, such as polyester and nylon, are not currently biodegradable. They will instead remain in landfills, or where they have been dumped, for decades or even hundreds of years.

However, a US-based scientific organisation is continuing work to find a natural way of getting waste polyester and nylon to quickly decompose.

"One of the approaches that we are looking at is how you break down these complicated materials, and in a way that actually gets rid of the toxic effects of dyes and coating," says Beth Rattner, the executive director of the Montana-based Biomimicry Institute. "Using biological materials, whether that be enzymes or bacteria, to create new materials."

She adds that the aim is to "take the existing mountains of clothing waste and turn them into something that's biocompatible".

The Biomimicry Institute's project - dubbed Design for Decomposition - will choose tech partners later this year, and report back in 2024.

Ms Rattner says that the new processes it is exploring can not only help break down existing fabrics in more planet-friendly ways, but could also in future form the basis of new innovative materials.

"Instead of dyes you could use the structure of the fibre itself, the same for water repellency, rather than coating it, or to make wrinkle-free fabrics."

While the term "fast fashion" was originally coined to refer to the short length of time clothes took from going from design stage to shop, it has come to mean endless consumption of cheap clothes.

According to the UK's Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which campaigns for more recycling, every second there are enough garments thrown away to fill a rubbish truck, with less than 1% recycled into new clothes.

It means, says Jules Lennon, leader of its fashion programme, that "today's fashion system is broken".

"More clothes are being made than ever before, yet we are using them less," she adds. "The fashion industry is responsible for more annual greenhouse gas emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.

"It is also a significant contributor to biodiversity loss due to soil degradation and waterway pollution caused by raw material production methods and intensive washing and dyeing processes."

Jean Hegedus, head of sustainability at Lycra, the maker of the stretchy man-made spandex fabric of the same brand name, is well aware of the problems.

"It's estimated that about eight to 10% of all carbon emissions come from the textile and apparel industry, so we know that we have to change," she tells the BBC.

Change for US-based Lycra means finding a natural replacement for the spandex that makes up the majority of its material. Spandex, like nylon, is derived from petroleum.

"We found that if just one component, which makes up 70% of the total fibre, could be swapped from a petroleum-based fibre to a renewable one, it would reduce the product's carbon footprint by 44%," says Ms Hegedus.

Lycra's journey to find this new raw material began in the US state of Iowa. There a company called Qore is working with farmers to source the corn being used to create a new material called Qira, which will become a key component of Lycra.

"The core product is really interesting," says Ms Hegedus. "It's made from what we call 'industrial dent corn'. So it's not like sweetcorn that's used for human consumption. It's specifically grown for things like materials, or to go into paper, or for animal feed."

Lycra is now building a large wind-powered factory in Iowa to make its material using Qira instead of polyester. This is due to start production next year, and Lycra wants 70% of its fibre content to come from the new corn-based fibre.

New Tech Economy is a series exploring how technological innovation is set to shape the new emerging economic landscape.

Ms Hegedus says the switch will make its material 10% more expensive to manufacture, a cost that it will share with its clothing firm customers. She adds that most "are very positive" about the change.

Lycra says that the use of Qira has no negative impact on the functionality or comfort of its products. However, the first version of the corn-based Lycra will not be recyclable, but the firm says it is "working on" that problem.

The manufacture of clothing using natural materials not previously associated with textile production is a growing sector.

Take US firm MycoWorks, which produces leather-like material from mushroom mycelium (the roots of the fungi). Its first large-scale manufacturing facility is due to open in South Carolina at the end of the year, and aims to produce several million square feet of its material, known as Reishi, annually.

Meanwhile, companies such as UK-based Faber Futures are exploring the use of a soil-dwelling bacteria called streptomyces coelicolor. It has the potential to revolutionise the textile dyeing process, because it produces a rainbow of pigments as part of its normal life cycle, from vibrant blues and reds to subtle yellows.

In Finland, a company called Spinnova turns wood pulp into clothing fabric. It breaks down the pulp into micro-scale fibres which it turns into a cotton-like thread.

With customers including H&M and Adidas, earlier this year it opened a factory in Jyvaskyla, western Finland, with the aim of manufacturing one million tons of fibre annually by 2033. The factory is carbon-neutral - the only by-product is heat which is pumped back into the local heating system.

Spinnova's fibres can be recycled and re-spun, but the firm's interim CEO Ben Selby acknowledges, that for this type of "circular textile loop" to work, brands and customers will need to change.

"The whole industry needs to start to better at collecting back old garments that can then be recycled," he says.

Numerous fashion retailers now offer "takeback" schemes - you can return old clothes that they will recycle. However, one report this year, which tracked 21 returned items from 10 fashion brands, found that three-quarters were either destroyed, left in warehouses, or exported thousands of miles to Africa to form new unwanted clothes mountains.

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The hunt for a new way to tackle clothing waste

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Scientists in the US are trying to find enzymes or bacteria that will decompose manmade fibres.

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 Artical 3: Jennifer Mmbone -  30124075                 Waste Management and Research      

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 Artical 3: Jennifer Mmbone -  30124075                 Waste Management and Research      

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Harvard Reference: Oluwadipe, S., Garelick, H., McCarthy, S. and Purchase, D. (2021). ‘A Critical Review of Household Recycling Barriers in the United Kingdom’, Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy, 40(7), p.0734242X2110606. Available at: doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0734242x211060619. (Accessed: 11 February 2024).

Article Review:

Waste has become a major concern from the time of Industrial Revolution to date. People have come up with different ways of managing waste and a solution is yet to be found. The article above reviews the household recycling barriers considering that the recycling rate in the United Kingdom fluctuates between 45% and 47% which is far below the 65% target set by the post-Brexit Resource and Waste Strategy. The low recycling rate is associated with several recycling challenges identified by this article and among them are waste policy constraints, physical barriers, human factors and socio-economic barriers. The article also recognizes three important key factors that can be used to maximize the recycling rates and they include infrastructure, service and behavior. The authors of the article agree that a meaningful intervention in the situation is only possible when there is an understanding of the behaviour of the end users of the products and this will create a recycling regime in which recycling services are aligned with the behaviour of end users.

I chose this article since it reviews the key barriers to waste reduction that must be addressed to meet the recycling rate of 65% set by the government. A focus on the current challenges is critical in identifying different techniques and policy gaps that need to be addressed to align the recycling services with the behaviour of the end users. If there is the needed infrastructure, effective services and an understanding of the behaviours of end users, then it is possible to have a plan that overcomes the complex recycling challenges.

This journal article is peer-reviewed and supported with literature and data from several databases from between 1985 to 2021 and this makes it credible, reliable and important in understanding the challenges in recycling over the years. This historical approach makes it possible to go through research and studies that have identified recycling barriers hence identifying major barriers that need to be addressed to be able to have services that align with the behaviors of end users.

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Article 02 : KIRUSHIKA MAHENDRA - 30111057

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Article 02 : KIRUSHIKA MAHENDRA - 30111057

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Harvard Reference:

Lorraine E. Whitmarsh, Paul Haggar and Thomas. (06 December 2018) Waste Reduction Behaviours Across Contexts, Volume 09., School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom: Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org

Article Review:

This article illustrates about waste reduction primarily by reduce, reuse and recycle. It focuses more on how this principle applies at home, work and on holiday. ‘Expanding the focus to include holiday as well as workplace and home contexts, their survey analysis shows that the proportion of waste recycled in the home is higher (67%) than in the workplace (39%) and on holiday (38%)’ [ Lorraine E. Whitmarsh, Paul Haggar and Merryn Thomas. (06 December 2018) Waste Reduction Behaviours Across Contexts, Volume 09., School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom: Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org ]. They undertook an virtual analyse with laboratory workers (primarily in the UK; N = 213) to analysed the interpreters of recycling and waste reduction patterns around these contexts (home, work and holidays). The study highlights the importance of both contextual and individual factors in shaping waste behaviours and significant links among different waste reduction behaviours within and between contexts. It also specifies the factors which affecting the waste reduction behaviour, theory of planned behaviour and contextual consistency and also discussed with what predicts waste behaviours in different context. This article theorised the importance of appropriate influences in forecasting waste reduction actions. They undertook initial qualitative research to explore the range of influences on recycling, reducing and reuse behaviours in order to inform a subsequent quantitative survey. They conducted interviews with laboratory workers working at a UK university who were at different career-stages in several disciplines (biosciences, engineering, earth sciences, medicine). That’s why I choose this article due to reliability and accuracy.

In conclusion, the attitudes to recycling may be mostly positive because, as this study strengthens this finding, with at least as important relational and control implications for forecasting recycling as personal motivation or norm. Recycling requires different forms of intervention or support because people engage in recycling rather than reuse or reduction behaviour. They view repairability, storage space, product availability, changing norms of consumption as more difficult than recycling.