WRAP to Continue Tackling Recycling and the Circular Economy Despite Cuts

Budget cuts won’t halt the UK’s Waste and Resources Action Programme’s (WRAP) work towards a circular economy, according to the organisation’s Annual Report. In his chairman’s statement, Peter Stone explained that funding from the government’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) through to 2015/16 has now been agreed at a significantly reduced level of £15.5 million in 2015/16. In 2013 the organisation had total incoming revenue of £63.115 million, composed mainly of government grants, as well as £1.127 million of project revenue. The reduction from last year’s £65.6 million total revenue was attributed to a reduction in Defra funded programmes. “WRAP will still receive significant funding which will allow us to continue to make a major contribution to boosting economic growth and achieving improved use of resources and we will be fully able to continue to deliver our highly- regarded work for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Governments and other funders,” said the chairman. However, Stone also conceded that with a reduced budget the organisation would need to narrow its focus on fewer priorities. Alternative funding Stone also explained that he organisation is seeking to offset at least some of the cuts from Defra by increasing its funding from alternative sources. “We will also continue to work to secure other sources of income to further diversify our funding base. We are pursuing a number of opportunities and I am very confident of success,” he added. According to Stone, feedback from WRAP’s funders demonstrate that it is in a unique position to bring together businesses from across entire sectors, at the pre-competitive stage, which would not happen if they were acting alone. Stone also noted that during the past year WRAP has been at the centre of a re-casting of the issues associated with the move to a more circular economy on a global stage, and that there is evidence of some leading companies developing such models. “However, the market is inevitably immature, and my sense is that these developments are still tentative and embryonic rather than mainstream within business strategy,” he added. Stone also pointed to the organisation’s international work as a founder partner of the United Nations Environment Programme's Think Eat Save campaign designed to tackle global food waste and increase food security. Main activities The report highlighted some the main activities undertaken by WRAP during the past year: WRAP launched the ‘Product Sustainability Forum (PSF)’ – a new forum to tackle the environment ‘footprint’ of everyday goods. As a result, Co-operative Group, Nestle and Sainsbury’s are going to test ways to improve the environmental performance of some of their products, following research published by PSF. WRAP worked closely with London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) to deliver a sustainable London 2012 games. A new events industry roadmap ‘Zero Waste events: a 2020 vision’ was launched later in the year, with a goal of no waste being sent to landfill from UK events by the end of the decade. New textile research published by WRAP highlighted the economic value of discarded textiles thrown out by consumers. The research looked at the whole journey from raw materials to manufacture, purchase, use and disposal of clothing. £238m worth of textiles were thrown out and sent to landfill, yet all of this could have been re-used, recycled or sent for energy recovery. Meanwhile there is £30 billion unused clothing in UK’s wardrobes. By increasing the use of clothing by an extra nine months we could reduce water, carbon and waste impacts by up to 20-30% each and save £5 billion.New guidance for local authorities and textile collectors was also launched aimed at helping them increase textile re-use and recycling. A new voluntary agreement was launched to target the hospitality and food service industry. This agreement aims to cut food and associated packaging waste by 5% (a CO2e reduction of 234,000 tonnes), the equivalent of approximately 100 million meals. The grocery sector continues to show its commitment to reducing food and drink waste as 45 signatories joined the third phase of the Courtauld Commitment. The Federation House Commitment (FHC) voluntary agreement in the food manufacturing sector goes from strength to strength with a 14.4% reduction in water use (not including that in the product itself). The amount of water saved could fill nearly 2400 Olympic-sized swimming pools. A new app from Love Food Hate Waste helped consumers save money while on the move. The app helps consumers keep track of their budgets by food planning, shopping and making the most of left-overs and recipes. Zero Waste Scotland offered an exciting and significant funding package to support Local Authorities in the separate collection of food waste. The programme will help deliver the aims of the Scottish Government’s Zero Waste Plan and assist Authorities in meeting their obligations under the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012. Halving Waste to Landfill – the voluntary agreement for the construction sector – drew to a close. During its life the agreement received more than 800 signatories and WRAP’s procurement wording influenced construction projects exceeding £40 billion. Zero Waste Scotland trained 450 volunteers to help communities reduce their waste – who in turn donated 10,000 hours to local groups. In England, WRAP’s Local Partnership Advisors trained over 3,500 delegates from 100 organisations, whilst our partnership with Greater London Volunteering encouraged nearly 3,000 people to become Food Waste Champions, cascading their knowledge to an estimated 40,000 others in their local communities. WRAP administered the successful Rethink Waste Capital Fund for the Department of the Environment Northern Ireland to support Councils in Northern Ireland in introducing initiatives that will boost waste recycling and reuse activity. WRAP Cymru launched new consultancy support for manufacturing SMEs following the success of the European-funded ReMake project. WRAP supported the South East Seven group of Local Authorities in identifying major opportunities to reduce the costs of waste collection through collaboration and to increase the value they obtain for recycled materials. The innovative new support programme ‘Resource Efficient Scotland’ was developed for launch in April 2013 to provide free, specialist advice and on-site support to help Scottish businesses, public and third-sector organisations cut their energy, water and raw material costs. Read More VIDEO: Chemocatalysis to Unlock Biofuel from Wastes Science and industry are collaborating in the Dutch CatchBio project to develop catalytic reactions that process biowaste into useful biofuels, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. 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