The “food waste plug-in” – reference year 2012
Project description and outputs
xxxx xx, 2015
Directorate E: Sectoral and regional statistics
Unit E-2: Environmental statistics and accounts, sustainable development
This document was prepared by Marie Pairon and Marie Roberti de Winghe, ICEDD (Institut de Conseil et d’Etudes en Développement Durable asbl) and edited for publication by Eurostat.
TABLE of Contents
1 Introduction 5
1.1 Objectives 5
1.2 Food waste: context and need for data 5
1.2.1 Rationale 5
1.2.2 The need for Reliable data 6
1.3 Food waste: existing projects and current definitions 6
1.3.1 Definition from the waste framework directive 6
1.3.2 Definition from the FUSIONS project 6
2 The food waste plug-in project 7
2.1 Context of the project 7
2.2 Data collection on waste containing food waste 8
2.2.1 Data collection on waste generation 8
2.2.1.1 Detail collected by EWC-Stat 8
2.2.1.2 Detail collected by NACE activitY 10
2.2.2 Data collection on waste treatment 10
2.3 Data validation 11
2.3.1 Short description of the tests 11
2.3.2 Validation results 12
2.4 Suggested indicator on food waste generation 13
2.4.1 Presentation of a possible indicator 13
2.4.1.1 Waste containing food waste in the disaggregated waste data collected 13
2.4.1.1 Estimates of food waste in ‘mixed municipal waste’ 16
2.4.1.2 Indicator calculation and Hypotheses 17
2.4.1.3 indicator computation results 17
2.4.2 Presentation of the existing indicator 22
2.4.3 Comparison between both indicators 22
2.5 Treatment of waste containing food waste 24
2.5.1 Indicator on estimated food waste treatment 24
2.5.2 indicator computation results 25
2.5.2.1 Mean indicator value 25
3 Conclusions 28
4 References 29
5 Annex 31
Index of FIGURES
Figure 1 The FUSIONS technical framework defining the food supply chain and food waste 7
Figure 2: Food waste plug-in: total waste generated – classification into waste mainly, partly and not containing food waste 16
Figure 3: Percentage of food waste in 20 03 01, by country 17
Figure 4: Food waste indicator repartition by generating sectors 18
Figure 5: Food waste indicator repartition by List of Waste category 19
Figure 6: Food waste estimate (kg per inhabitant) generated by country and NACE, 2012 20
Figure 7: Food waste estimate (kg per inhabitant) generated by country and NACE, detail for the manufacturing sector, 2012 21
Figure 8: Comparison between the former indicator (Bio intelligence study, 2006 data) and the new indicator (Food waste plug in, 2012 data), by NACE and for the total. 23
Figure 9: Estimated food waste treatment operations (mean kg per inhabitant for 13 countries) in 2012. 25
Figure 10: Estimated food waste treated, by LoW code (mean kg per inhabitant for 13 countries) in 2012. 26
Figure 11: Estimated food waste treated (mean kg per inhabitant for 13 countries) by treatment operation and LoW code in 2012 27
Figure 12: Food waste estimate treatment operations (kg per inhabitant) by country in 2012. 28
Index of tables
Table 1 Relevant waste categories and economic activities in WStatR for calculating Food waste estimates 8
Table 2 LoW-entries that may contain food waste 9
Table 3 NACE activities that may be relevant for the food waste generation estimate 10
Table 4: Choice of proxies for food waste comparison among countries – correlation results 11
Table 5: LoW codes mainly, partly or not containing food wastes: suggested classification 14
Table 6: Food waste indicator by NACE activity and country, 2012 (kg per inhabitant) 21
1 Introduction
1.1 Objectives
The objectives of the present document areto:
· Give an overview of the context in which food waste data is needed, describe the existing projects as well as provide existing definitions on food waste (chapter 1 sections 1.2 and 1.3)
· Describe the ‘food waste plug-in’ project: what were the aims of the project, what are the limitations of the data collected (chapter 2 sections 2.1 and 2.2)
· Describe the data received as well as the methodological problems encountered by the Member States to provide the data (chapter 2 section 2.2.2)
· Present an indicator on food waste estimate and compare it with existing data from the literature (chapter 2 section 2.4).
1.2 Food waste: context and need for data
1.2.1 Rationale
Food waste and its related environmental, economic, and social implications are of increasing public concern. According to FAO (2011) one third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tonnes per year.
Food waste occurs at every stage of the food supply chain i.e. at harvesting, processing, retail, and consumption level. While in developing countries over 40% of food losses occur after harvesting and during processing, in industrialised countries, over 40% occur at retail and consumer level (FAO 2011). These losses may be due to many reasons. For instance, part of food waste is caused by legislation, which is often put in place to protect human health. Another part could be linked to consumer preferences and habits (European Commission 2015a).
In 2010, a preparatory study for the European Commission estimated that in the EU alone, 89 million tonnes of food or 179 kg per person were wasted every year (Bio Intelligence Service 2010, 11)This amount of food waste was expected to rise to 126 million tonnes by 2020, if nothing is done (Bio Intelligence Service 2010, 105).
The European Commission is therefore considering seriously the issue of tackling food waste. The food sector and food waste are among the key areas highlighted in the European Commission’s ‘Roadmap to a resource efficient Europe’ of September 2011 (European Commission 2011).
Reducing the amount of food waste is also important if Member States are to meet targets on addressing climate change and limiting greenhouse gas emissions as well as fulfilling obligations under the European Landfill Directive to reduce biodegradable waste going to landfill (Bio Intelligence Service 2010).
In 2014, the Commission's Communication ‘Towards a circular economy (European Commission 2014a): a zero waste programme for Europe’, and the related legislative proposal (European Commission 2014b, 13) to review recycling and other waste targets, put forward objectives for food waste reduction along the whole food supply chain in the EU. It included a proposal for Member States to develop national food waste prevention strategies with the aim of reducing food waste by at least 30 percent by 2025. Sectors concerned by these strategies include: manufacturing, retail/distribution, food service/hospitality and households. In 2015, the Commission withdrew its legislative proposal on waste targets to replace it with a new, more ambitious proposal to promote circular economy by the end of the year.
The lack of reliable data on food waste hinders the assessment of the environmental impacts of food waste, the anticipated developments in food waste generation over time, and the setting of targeted policies for food waste prevention.
1.2.2 The need for Reliable data
This is also a major conclusion arising from the final report ‘preparatory study on food waste across EU27’ published in October 2010 by the European Commission. It stresses the importance and necessity of statistical data and time series for all Member States to provide reliable data on food waste, thereby allowing for more robust and reliable estimations and forecasting (Bio Intelligence Service 2010, 106).
The ‘food waste plug-in’ project described in this document was set up by Eurostat and the respective national data providers to see if reliable data could be obtained on food waste or on waste containing food waste based on the existing data collection according to the Waste Statistics Regulation (EC.2002).
1.3 Food waste: existing projects and current definitions
1.3.1 Definition from the waste framework directive
There is no current definition for food waste in the European Waste Framework Directive (European Commission 2008, 7). The Waste Framework Directive defines bio-waste, which includes food waste, as follows: ‘bio-waste’ means biodegradable garden and park waste, food and kitchen waste from households, restaurants, caterers and retail premises and comparable waste from food processing plants. It does not include forestry or agricultural residues, manure, sewage sludge, or other biodegradable waste such as natural textiles, paper or processed wood. It also excludes those by-products of food production that never become waste (European Commission 2015c).
1.3.2 Definition from the FUSIONS project
FUSIONS[1] is a project which is funded by the Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7). Its main objective is to work towards achieving a more resource efficient Europe by significantly reducing food waste (FUSIONS 2015). Amongst its objectives, the project first aimed at establishing a standard approach on system boundaries and definitions of food waste. It suggested the following definition (Östergren et al. 2014, 23):
Food waste is any food, and inedible parts of food, removed[2] from the food supply chain to be recovered or disposed (including - composted, crops ploughed in/not harvested, anaerobic digestion, bio - energy production, co-generation, incineration, disposal to sewer, landfill or discarded to sea).
It uses the general system of resource flows in the agri-food system as a framework for defining food waste (see Figure 1).
More specifically, it means that:
Ø Any food and inedible parts of food, removed from the food supply chain sent to destinations B3-B11 are termed ‘food waste’.
Ø Any food and inedible parts of food, sent to animal-feed, bio-material processing or other industrial uses (B1-B2) are termed ‘valorisation and conversion’ and are distinct from ‘food waste’.
Figure 1 The FUSIONS technical framework defining the food supply chain and food waste
The food waste plug-in was not based on any particular definition of food waste. The underlying idea was to examine whether existing data can be used to estimate food waste generation regardless of a given definition. The data and classifications used in this document are not congruent with the FUSIONS concepts. Firstly, waste statistics consider only waste that is handed over to the waste management system. Secondly, the waste treatment categories used in the FUSIONS framework an in waste statistics overlap only partially.
2 The food waste plug-in project
2.1 Context of the project
Eurostat has been working together with Member States to see how food waste data could be collected within the data collection framework set by the Waste Statistics Regulation (WStatR) (EC 2002). The project was therefore set up to answer the following question: “What can the WStatR data tell us about food waste generation and treatment?” Seventeen countries agreed to provide disaggregated data for food containing food waste on a voluntary basis, together with their reporting obligation on reference year 2012. They were all able to provide these data for waste generation and 15 of them were also able to provide data for waste treatment.
2.2 Data collection on waste containing food waste
The idea underlying the project on the food waste plug-in was that the easiest way of collecting data with reasonable effort is to collect them given the existing legal framework in the EU, i.e. the Waste Statistics Regulation. Within this framework, data are collected on waste generation and waste treatment according to every second year. Data on waste generation are broken down into 51 waste categories according to the EWC-Stat classification and into 19 economic activities according to NACE Rev. 2 and households. Data on waste treatment are collected according to 6 treatment operations.
2.2.1 Data collection on waste generation
In order to get more information on the EWC-Stat items that might contain food waste, the food waste plug-in consisted of a disaggregation of some data by List of Waste code and by NACE activity.
The EWC-Stat and NACE categories collected in the Waste Statistics Regulation, which were considered relevant for food waste data collection, and therefore needed disaggregation, are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Relevant waste categories and economic activities in WStatR for calculating Food waste estimates
Item /NACE ACTIVITIES
EWC-STAT / A01-A03
Agriculture, forestry and fishing / C10 - C12
Manufacture of food products, beverages, tobacco / G - U excl. G46.77
Service activities / Households / Total
31 / 09.1 / Animal and mixed food waste / Data reported for the Waste Statistics Regulation (WStatR) – waste generation
32 / 09.2 / Vegetal wastes
34 / 10.1 / Household and similar wastes
51 / TT / Total
2.2.1.1 Detail collected by EWC-Stat
As can be seen in Table 1 (in blue cells), the WStatR breakdown of the EWC-Stat allows the distinction of the following waste types containing food waste:
- 09.1 “animal and mixed food waste”,
- 09.2 “vegetable waste”,
- 10.1 “household and similar waste”.
However, these waste categories include more waste than just food waste. The level of aggregation in WStatR data does not allow to easily determine the food waste content of these collected items. Therefore, in order to improve the accuracy of data collected that may consist of food waste, the so-called “food waste plug-in” was developed. This plug-in breaks down the EWC-Stat data according to the underlying List of Waste (LoW) categories. This is shown in Table 2 with the blue cells representing data that are already available from the WStatR. The green cells indicate data that reporting countries were asked to complete in the food waste plug-in, whenever these data were available.
Table 2 LoW-entries that may contain food waste
09.1 Animal and mixed food waste02 01 02 / animal-tissue waste
02 02 01 / sludges from washing and cleaning
02 02 02 / animal-tissue waste
02 02 03 / materials unsuitable for consumption or processing
02 05 01 / materials unsuitable for consumption or processing
02 03 02 / wastes from preserving agents
02 06 02 / wastes from preserving agents
19 08 09 / grease and oil mixture from oil/water separation containing only edible oil and fats
20 01 08 / biodegradable kitchen and canteen waste
20 01 25 / edible oil and fat
09.2 Vegetal wastes
02 01 07 / wastes from forestry
20 02 01 / biodegradable waste
02 01 01 / sludges from washing and cleaning
02 01 03 / plant-tissue waste
02 03 01 / sludges from washing, cleaning, peeling, centrifuging and separation
02 03 03 / wastes from solvent extraction
02 03 04 / materials unsuitable for consumption or processing
02 06 01 / materials unsuitable for consumption or processing
02 07 01 / wastes from washing, cleaning and mechanical reduction of raw materials
02 07 02 / wastes from spirits distillation
02 07 04 / materials unsuitable for consumption or processing
10.1 Household and similar wastes
20 03 01 / mixed municipal waste
20 03 02 / waste from markets
20 03 07 / bulky waste
20 03 99 / municipal wastes not otherwise specified
20 03 03 / street-cleaning residues
This breakdown allows distinguishing between the categories that mainly contain food waste and the ones that do not (or at least should not) contain it. For instance, in item 09.1 “animal and mixed food waste”, “animal-tissue waste” (02 01 02) should mainly include food waste, whereas “sludges from washing and cleaning” (02 02 01) should not contain food waste, according to the definition given in section 1.3 that specifies that water from washing and cleaning is excluded from the scope of the definition.