Wyke Farms boss calls for packaging collection reform

The Government needs to rethink the way food and packaging waste is collected and recycled to prevent confusion among businesses and consumers, according to Wyke Farms managing director Richard Clothier.

In this exclusive video interview – recorded at this year’s Food Manufacture Business Leaders’ Forum, sponsored by law firm DWF – Clothier found it unthinkable that some councils were not collecting food waste.

“There’s absolutely no excuse for food to be going into landfill,” he said. “It should be compulsory for councils to collect food waste, because food to landfill in the modern era is a crazy thing. It should be banned.”

Waste collection challenge

When asked to provide a solution to the UK’s packaging waste challenges, Clothier pointed at the failings of the current devolved system governing local recycling schemes and called for a countrywide system to be implemented.

“It would then unlock some potentially big projects for recycling plastics through things like depolymerisation plants, which would then allow for some of the laminate and coloured films to be recycled as well. This could change the whole face of packaging waste within our industry,” Clothier added.   

Meanwhile, click here to see our exclusive video interview with Greencore chief executive Patrick Coveney, filmed at this year’s Business Leaders’ Forum, and look out for more stories from the event appearing on this site.

Music: Tech Live Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/