New food regulations should mean savings

New food regulations should mean savings

It’s thought that fewer than 15 per cent of hospitality businesses in Northern Ireland may be actively preparing for the implementation of new regulations this April which will radically change the manner in which they dispose of their food waste. Yet the new rules could mean solid savings for your business…

The Food Waste Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015 came into force in February last year and these new rules are going to significantly impact commercial food operators here. From April 1, those businesses will have to separate their organic food waste and present it separately for collection – it can no longer simply be sent for disposal in landfill.

The purpose of the new arrangements is to encourage recycling of organic waste, thus reducing harmful emissions from food left to rot in open landfill sites.

But as Pamela Jordan from specialist waste firm, River Ridge Recycling explained recently, the new law also presents hospitality businesses with a golden opportunity to streamline their waste systems – and make some sizeable savings in the process.

“Changing the way that you dispose of your waste can undoubtedly bring big, visible savings and we have the data available that lets us demonstrate this to our clients,” she told LCN. “We are able to tell each of our customers how much they have diverted from landfill every month and how much of a financial saving that has meant for them.”

One such client is the City Hotel in Derry-Londonderry, which has worked with Garvagh-based River Ridge for the last three years or so. Every month, River Ridge briefs its client on the amount of food waste its kitchens have generated, where that waste has gone and how much money the hotel has saved by bypassing the landfill option.

“As a result, they’ve received their Green Hotel certification, so it’s a win-win situation for everyone,” says Pamela.

River Ridge was founded around a decade ago. Originally intended purely as a landfill business, significant investment over that time has allowed it to evolve into a leading specialist provider of waste recycling solutions.

It now focuses on helping local businesses identify ways in which they can move away from expensive landfill options and extract savings and new procedural efficiencies from recycling.

Pamela Jordan
Pamela Jordan

River Ridge offers a full waste management service, from bespoke wheelie bins to commercial bins, skips and roll-on, roll-off containers alongside a complete, flexible collection service.

Crucially, however, it also offers its customers a full, free waste management audit. Its business development managers can visit your business, look at the waste that’s being produced and tell you how you can dispose of it in a more efficient and cost-effective manner.

Pamela feels that the waste audit will be an invaluable tool to those hospitality businesses who currently aren’t sure how they should approach April’s changes. Once the new arrangements are implemented, any business producing more than 50 kilos of waste food – that’s enough to half-fill a standard wheelie bin – will have to comply by keeping that waste separate.

“When you think about it, 50 kilos of waste isn’t a lot for a business of any size, so most businesses are going to be affected by this,” she adds. “We find that a lot of them are just waiting for the deadline to arrive before they do anything, but that really isn’t ideal. These new regulations are administered by the NI Environment Agency and you will be fined if you don’t comply with them.

And she adds:

“The new rules are a sensible approach and they will lead to a reduction in costs for businesses aswell as a cleaner, greener environment for everyone,” adds Pamela. “We must find other alternatives to landfill for disposal of our waste and these new rules are a way of helping companies follow through on that.”

Pamela continues:

“We will provide our clients with all the receptacles that they need to comply at no additional charge. If you go with your local authority, you’ll have to buy your bins from them. We then charge our clients on a monthly basis for the service that we provide, but this can be 10-15 per cent – and sometimes as much as 40 per cent – cheaper than local authority rates for waste disposal. So again, it’s a win-win situation.”

Pamela advises any hospitality business that works with food to act now and make sure that it’s ready for the rule changes on April 1:

“To be honest, we think that a lot of businesses aren’t really prepared for the changes. The information has been out there for at least 12 months, but people are ignoring it  because they think it’s a hassle, they won’t benefit from it or they blame time or staff constraints for a lack of action.

“The fact is though that this won’t take as much time as you think it might to implement. Once staff have been properly trained, it should work in easily with you normal systems and it’s going to save you money in the long run.”

RRRoncoast