The use of best-before dates on fresh produce in the Irish retail sector should be prohibited in an effort to curtail household food waste, an all-party committee has recommended.
The move “will allow customers to exercise their own judgment to decide on food quality and effectively reduce the approximately 250,000 tonnes of food waste generated by Irish households every year”, the report by the Environment and Climate Action Committee finds.
Analysing the extent of the circular economy in Ireland, it highlights use of raw materials is currently at a rate 50 per cent higher than nature can replenish each year, with risk this unsustainable trend could triple by 2050 if current trends continue.
Despite some innovative initiatives, the circular economy, which requires sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible, remains underdeveloped, said Deputy Richard Bruton (FG) who was special rapporteur for the report.
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“The market for materials recovered through recycling is weak and hampers best use of materials. The repair, reuse and refurbishment sectors are very small. The sharing sector in Ireland is also in its infancy,” he added.
The report says building and car occupancy in Ireland are exceptionally low, while few public buildings accommodate different users. The report contains 47 recommendations to meaningfully increase Ireland’s rate of circularity in line with demanding Irish legislation and EU regulations.
Perhaps the most lasting legacy of the Covid crisis has been an increased awareness of the risks that arise from global supply chains, Mr Bruton said, yet “our current ‘take, make, use, discard’ model ignores the environmental costs along the supply chain”.
The circular economy model aims to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation by rethinking supply chains entirely, he said, while making right choices at the outset was so much better than trying to correct this afterwards.
“It is estimated 80 per cent of environmental damage is baked in at the design stage. We should not think of the circular challenge as how we manage waste. Instead, it is about rethinking how we meet our needs in a way that has less adverse impacts and which designs out waste.”
The report underlines the importance of the food, construction, consumer durables and textile sectors in embracing circularity. Actions to promote the circular economy should be integrated into the Government’s climate action plan, it says – and built into the detailed sectoral planning, backed by oversight and reporting obligations, and a requirement to adopt plans if targets are not being reached.
Local authorities should install deposit return scheme machinery including machinery capable of handling large quantities of cans and bottles at the same time, it says.
Introduction of mandatory monitoring, measurement and reporting of food waste should be pursued across all parts of the supply chain, it adds. The committee recommends information and incentives should be developed “to promote better purchasing, storing and consumption of food, avoidance of excess packaging and optimal separation of disposals”.
There should be enhanced supports for the reuse and repair sector, including a reduced VAT rate, reduced commercial rates, tax benefits and implementation of reuse bonus schemes.
“There are many opportunities to become more circular in how we behave that are within relatively easy reach,” Mr Bruton said. These included greater use of smart controls, shallow retrofits, smart meters, food waste avoidance, guidance for low impact refurbishment, changing the choice of building materials and better waste separation.
In addition, there was a need for more public EV charging networks; sharing platforms for travel and others uses; right sizing supports; packaging-free areas in larger supermarkets; and remote health delivery.
“They all represent structural shifts with low upfront costs but significant savings,” he said.
Standardisation of labels and the verifiability of any claims should occur at pace, the report says, and public procurement should be standardised to align with new attention to circularity.
Creation of new targets and emergence of new markets are needed to make a circular economy model a reality and should include tighter regulation of what materials can be used, backed by consistent methodology for measuring the environmental footprint of products, it says.
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