Food for thought – The implications of new recycling regulations on the care home sector

By Paul Barker, Care Home Business Development Manager, Anenta

From March 31st, England will introduce new waste disposal regulations as part of the Government’s Simpler Recycling initiative. Designed to reduce waste and increase recycling rates across the country, this has direct and potentially significant implications for the care home and nursing home sector.

These changes will mean that – in addition to segregating clinical waste and offensive waste into separate waste streams – care homes will now have a legal duty to separate out all recyclable materials from general waste.

Paper and card, plastic, glass, metal, and food waste will all need to be separated and stored in segregated waste collection streams, necessitating larger storage areas, more waste receptacles, and more waste collections.

Although this will have implications and associated costs, the new regulations are important because incorrectly disposed waste not only puts a strain on England’s waste capacity – hampering sustainable waste targets – but also significantly adds to the cost of care home waste bills.

Food frustration

Of all the new waste streams, food waste is likely to be one of the biggest headaches for care homes. That’s because if you produce more than 5kg of food waste per week, you will need to implement a separate food waste disposal system.

Food is a particularly significant form of waste for most care homes as it’s almost impossible to avoid when catering for residents.

In some cases, care homes will have good protocols in place for uneaten or waste food, with collections for anaerobic digestion or composting in place. However, for many others this will not be the case, quite simply because it’s always been easier to put waste food into general waste.

And while food waste from canteens or communal eating areas may be relatively easy to collect and recycle, it’s important to remember that a significant amount of other food waste – resulting from items being consumed by both staff and residents in other areas – will end up in general waste too. What this means is that from April you’ll need to make separate food waste bins readily available in public areas.

How costly is the food waste problem?

Research undertaken by Anenta, which provides waste management services for care and nursing homes across England, shows that general waste for care homes costs anything between £180 and £250 a tonne. By comparison food waste – collected for anaerobic digestion – costs between £105 to £190 per tonne, depending on your care home location.

What this shows is that throwing food waste into general waste is actually more expensive than using a designated food waste collection service. When you consider that anything between 20% and 40% of care home waste by weight is made up of food waste, putting this into general waste is an expensive and unnecessary exercise.

Will switching to a food waste stream save you money?

In simple terms, yes. If care homes switch from using the general waste stream for food disposal to a designated food waste collection service, they could save anything between 8% and 16% on their general waste costs. That’s a saving of £60-£120 per 1,100 litre bin per annum. For care home groups with multiple locations, that’s a saving that soon mounts up.

So, far from being a bad thing financially, the new recycling regulations actually have the potential to bring about long-term cost savings for care homes throughout England. Viewed through that lens, switching to segregation early makes complete sense.

What if you don’t comply?

Under the new legislation, if you put food waste into the wrong bins from April, your supplier will not be permitted to collect them. However, you’ll still be charged, and repeated non-compliance could result in fines or other penalties.

To avoid this, you’ll not only need to have sufficient food waste bins in place within your care home, but appropriate training to ensure that all staff are aware of the importance of segregating waste correctly. Appropriate signage is also advised to avoid any confusion.

You’ll also need to ensure that food waste collected within your care home – including inedible food parts such as bones, eggshells, fruit and vegetable skins, tea bags and coffee grounds – actually make it into the designated food waste bin for collection.

Adopting this process will help to ensure that the correct waste goes into the correct channels, saving your care home money, keeping you compliant, minimising environmental impact, and avoiding inadvertent contamination that could cause issues with your waste collection, leading to extra cost, and stringent action by the authorities.

Embracing change to reduce your carbon footprint

In addition to making sound commercial sense, switching to a food waste collection stream has significant environmental benefits too.

Currently, when food makes its way into general waste, it is disposed of in landfills. Here, it decomposes anaerobically, releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas that, according to the UN Environmental Programme, is 80 times more harmful than carbon dioxide. With 9.5 million tonnes of food waste making its way into UK landfills each year (WRAP), it’s clear just how big this issue is, and why the new regulations are so important.

But methane is not the only issue at hand as food waste in landfills also produces harmful leachate which, if not carefully managed, can cause contamination to groundwater, contributing to environmental degradation.

By diverting your food waste from general waste into a separate food waste recycling stream you can play a part in helping slow the rate of global warming. Instead of sending food to landfill, it can be reprocessed through the process of anaerobic digestion to create organic fertiliser and biogas, helping your business to move one step closer to becoming zero-to-landfill and achieving your environmental targets.

Far from being feared, the new Simpler Recycling regulations should be embraced, saving your care home money and playing a part in saving the future of the planet.

For guidance and advice on how to prepare for the introduction of the Simpler Recycling Workplace Rules, and the best system for waste storage and collection, email Anenta at [email protected] or call 033 0122 2143.