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Roadmap for the Organics Sector Published

Posted: 21 September, 2021. Written by Emma

Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) have published their roadmap for addressing the key challenges facing the organics sector.

There is an increasing awareness of the value of circular economy and conserving our resources, as well as a growing recognition of the importance of maintaining healthy soils and ecosystems, this presents exciting opportunities for the organics sector but also creates a few key challenges moving forward.

WRAP have identified that the most pressing challenges the sector is likely to face are:

1. The absolute need for quality – quality inputs, quality operations and quality outputs. In particular the presence of microplastics in feedstock, for example from food waste caddy liners, is a significant problem to be addressed.
2. The need to reduce emissions of ammonia from the generation, spreading and use of digestates from anaerobic digestion (AD).
3. The need to fully value the products the organic sector produces. So far, composts and digestate have been undervalued as no value has been assigned to the various benefits of adding organic matter to soil or to the replacement value of nutrients that would otherwise come from inorganic sources.

The Roadmap also identifies what a successful future for the organic reprocessing industry looks like, it should deliver increased recovery and recycling of organic waste, and strengthen permitted limits for plastic contamination and ammonia pollution. The sector should also strive to increase consumer confidence in recycled organic products, waste-status composts and digestates and to develop and maintain the market for these products. In order to ensure that the roadmap remains live and relevant, WRAP, on behalf of Defra, will manage the roadmap and will work to convene the actions owners, including REAL and REA, and monitor progress made.

While this report represents a constructive starting point, WRAP emphasise that it is not comprehensive and there are likely to be new issues and opportunities that arrive, and new actions will be required as the sector develops further.

Click here to read The Roadmap in full: https://wrap.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-09/A-Roadmap-for-the-Organics-Sector_2.pdf