The Courtauld Commitment 2025 sets ambitious targets for food waste prevention and reduction for the UK, enveloped within the overall target for reducing the environmental impacts of food waste by 20% by 2025 compared with that of 2015. In addition, there is the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12·3 to reduce global food waste by 50% by 2030. This is an objective adopted by a number of businesses and governments, albeit there will, as always, be problems with the calculation of the measurement protocol.
A novel vacuum-packing system is developed for food waste storage and collection under the conditions found in high-density urban and metropolitan catering establishments that has the following beneficial outcomes: (a) a reduction of 38% in the volume of food waste to be stored for collection; (b) a reduction in the physical space required on-site for storage of multiple vacuum packs of waste; (c) containment of the food waste stored in sanitised conditions, thus maintaining the integrity of the waste and extending the useful life of the waste in terms of its ideal composition for optimum beneficial recovery by anaerobic digestion or in-vessel composting, and reducing problems due to odour and vermin; and (d) reduction in the number of vehicle movements required to transfer the wastes to treatment facilities and their environmental impacts, while also achieving savings of £13–16 per bin lift in London, along with a considerable reduction in overall cost.
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