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England's fresh approach to food waste: problem frames in the Resources and Waste Strategy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2020

Carrie Bradshaw Open the ORCID record for Carrie Bradshaw [Opens in a new window]
Carrie Bradshaw*
Affiliation:
School of Law, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
*
*Author email c.j.bradshaw@leeds.ac.uk
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Abstract

Coexisting and eye-watering levels of food abundance, waste, overconsumption and hunger are symptomatic of a broken food system punctuated by vested interests in systematic overproduction. Against that backdrop, this paper evaluates England's ‘new’ approach to food waste in light of concerns that policy-makers have framed food waste as a consumer behaviour problem, rather than a structural challenge. The Resources and Waste Strategy's acknowledgement of normalised overproduction is thus remarkable, but unexpected. However, frame critical analysis reveals how an apparent departure from preoccupations with economic growth, combined with promises of government action, obscure an ongoing reluctance to intervene against powerful interests and the causes (not symptoms) of food waste. Legislative proposals, rather than reducing surplus, shift the burden of redistributing food away from the state and retailers, on to charities and farmers. With England, perhaps wrongly, seen as a world-leader on food waste, this has implications for other jurisdictions, as well as forthcoming consultations.

Keywords

food wasteframingenvironmental law and policyunfair trading practicesAgriculture BillGroceries Code Adjudicator
Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 321 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Legal Scholars 2020

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Footnotes

†

I am grateful to Joanne Hawkins, Maria Lee, Christopher McElwain, Rebecca Moosavian, Christine Parker, Duncan Sheehan, Fiona Smith and anonymous reviewers, for their invaluable and detailed comments on written drafts. I also gratefully acknowledge the support provided by participants of the Leeds School of Law ‘Shut Up and Write’ group, and useful discussions with participants of a number of conferences, including the Interdisciplinary Symposium on Food Justice and the SLSA Annual Conference, both hosted by the School of Law, University of Leeds; the Annual Meeting of the LSA, Washington DC; the Future Food Symposium, University of Nottingham Business School; and How to Make a Just Food Future: Alternative Foodways for a Changing World, University of Sheffield. Any errors are, of course, my own.

References

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54 Rein and Schön, above n 17, p 150. See also Weiss, above n 20; Daviter, above n 17.

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63 Scotford and Robinson, above n 61, at 397.

64 Fisher et al, above n 49, ch 11.

65 Directive 2008/98/EC of 19 November 2008 on waste [2008] OJ L312/3 (as amended), Arts 28–29. Waste Prevention Programmes require Member States to identify and evaluate measures taken which break the link between economic growth and the environmental impacts of waste generation. Such ‘reflexive’ or procedural obligations are commonplace in EU environmental law. Given this paper's concern with food waste prevention (how we prevent food from becoming waste) in response to overproduction and overconsumption, we are less concerned with government policy on waste management (what we do with ‘stuff’ it becomes waste), and so our comparator for the 2018 Strategy is the Waste Prevention Programme, rather than the 2013 Waste Management Plan: Defra Waste Management Plan for England (London: Crown Copyright, 2013).

66 Strategy, above n 6, p 16.

67 Ibid, p 77, where the implication is that 2019 will see the separate preparation of at least a new Plan, and presumably a new Programme.

68 Scotford and Robinson, above n 61, at 397–398, citing R v Secretary of State for the Environment, ex p Hammersmith and Fulham LBC [1991] 1 AC 521 at 597.

69 van Hulst and Yanow, above n 17.

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72 Evans, above n 70; Alexander et al, above n 70; O'Brien, MA Crisis of Waste? (London: Routledge, Reprint edn, 2011)Google Scholar; Gille, above n 7.

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80 Evans et al, above n 70; Swaffield et al, above n 70; Welch et al, above n 70.

81 Evans et al, above n 70, at 1404.

82 Strategy, above n 6, ch 5.

83 Bardwell, above n 23.

84 Scotford, above n 1; Alexander et al, above n 70; Bradshaw, above n 5.

85 Bradshaw, above n 5; Ferrando and Mansuy, above n 5. On the particularities of food, see eg Parker and Johnson, above n 76; Johnson, HInternational Agricultural Law and Policy: A Rights-Based Approach to Food Security (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 HM Government The Programme, above n 13, pp 22–23.

87 They are food, textiles, paper and board, plastics, electronic and electrical equipment, other items for reuse, built environment (including construction and demolition and facilities management) and chemical and healthcare.

88 HM Government The Programme, above n 13, p 22.

89 Ibid, pp 11–12, 22, 26, 30 and 40.

90 The examples given were retained ownership models (such as take-back schemes), customer loyalty schemes (such as bicycle shops offering mechanical services and upgrades), or lease-based services (such as car hire models like ZipCar), see ibid, p 27.

91 As seen with food redistribution, where the perishability of food creates particular challenges. See C Alexander and C Smaje ‘Surplus retail food redistribution: an analysis of a third sector model’ (2008) 52 Resources, Conservation and Recycling 1290.

92 Directive (EU) 2018/851 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, Art 1(22)(c)(2a). This obligation will be retained law when the UK leaves the EU, see the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and Strategy, above n 6, p 113.

93 HM Government The Programme, above n 13, pp 25–44.

94 Strategy, above n 6, p 100.

95 Alexander et al, above n 70.

96 B Bajzelj et al ‘Food waste in primary production in the UK (final report)’ (WRAP 2019).

97 Ibid.

98 See eg Stuart, above n 75; Colbert, above n 76.

99 Strategy, above n 6, pp 9 and 70.

100 Ibid, pp 70–71.

101 Bradshaw, above n 5.

102 Strategy, above n 6, pp 19 and 36.

103 Ibid, p 138.

104 Strategy, above n 6, ch 8.

105 Ibid, pp 10 and 99.

106 Bradshaw, above n 5.

107 Strategy, above n 6, p 17.

108 HM Government The Programme, above n 13, p 5.

109 Strategy, above n 6, p 15.

110 Ibid.

111 Ibid, p 7.

112 HM Government The Programme, above n 13, pp 8–9.

113 See eg Fisher, L et al. Environmental Law: Text, Cases & Materials (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2019) pp 744–757Google Scholar.

114 HM Government The Programme, above n 13, pp 11–12.

115 Ibid.

116 Ibid, pp 8 and 28.

117 Ibid, p 42.

118 Bradshaw, above n 75.

119 HM Government The Programme, above n 13, p 42.

120 Defra, Government Review of Waste Policy in England 2011 (London: Crown Copyright, 2011) para 70Google Scholar.

121 Bradshaw, above n 75; Swaffield et al, above n 70.

122 The Code is contained in the Groceries (Supply Chain Practices) Market Investigation Order 2009, Sch 1; see also the Groceries Code Adjudicator Act 2013.

123 Strategy, above n 6, p 10.

124 Ibid, p 105.

125 Ibid, pp 107–109.

126 See HM Government The Programme, above n 13, eg p 19.

127 Ibid, p 42.

128 Ibid, p 10.

129 Ibid, p 56.

130 See M Blake ‘The multiple ontologies of surplus food’ (Europe Now, 7 May 2019) at https://www.europenowjournal.org/2019/05/06/the-multiple-ontologies-of-surplus-food/ (last accessed 10 January 2020).

131 Quoting (with permission) M Barsties (Head of Food Waste Heroes Programme, OLIO) in response to questions at ‘Future food symposium’, Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, 20 June 2019. See also OLIO ‘About’ at https://olioex.com/about/ (last accessed 23 December 2019).

132 See eg FareShare ‘Our impact: more than meals’ at https://fareshare.org.uk/what-we-do/our-impact/ (last accessed 23 December 2019).

133 See eg Sagoff, MPrice, Principle, and the Environment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

134 Strategy, above n 6, p 132.

135 HM Government The Programme, above n 13, p 16.

136 Strategy, above n 6, p 17.

137 On the distinction between consumer and citizen mobilisation and the limitations of the former in building sustainable communities, see eg Dobson, ACitizenship and the Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

138 See eg Eckersley, RThe Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

139 HM Government The Programme, above n 13, p 12.

140 Ibid.

141 Ibid, p 16.

142 House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Waste Management in England HC 241 (2015) paras 3–5.

143 House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, above n 16.

144 See also Stokes, above n 33.

145 Stuart, above n 75, has long campaigned for mandatory food waste reporting.

146 HM Government The Programme, above n 13, pp 5–6.

147 House of Lords EU Committee Counting the Cost of Food Waste: EU Food Waste Prevention HL 154 (2014) para 99.

148 WRAP ‘WRAP UK’ (9 October 2012) at http://www.wrap.org.uk/about-us/governance (last accessed 23 December 2019), WRAP ‘Annual financial review (2017–2018)’ at http://review-2018.wrap.org.uk/financial-review/ (last accessed 23 December 2019).

149 WRAP ‘About Us | Love Food Hate Waste’ at https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/about-us (last accessed 23 December 2019). See also Turner, BTaste, Waste and the New Materiality of Food (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018) pp 160–163CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

150 WRAP ‘Courtauld 2025’ (19 February 2018) at http://www.wrap.org.uk/food-drink/business-food-waste/courtauld-2025 (last accessed 23 December 2019).

151 Compare the 20% by 2025 target with the UN Sustainable Development Goal of reducing per capita food waste by 50% by 2030. See also the redistribution targets discussed by Bradshaw, above n 5, at fn 51.

152 See eg Vogel, DThe Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2006)Google Scholar; Gunningham, N ‘Corporate environmental responsibility: law and the limits of voluntarism’ in McBarnet, D et al. (eds) The New Corporate Accountability: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar. Cf with eg S Piras et al ‘Unfair trading practice regulation and voluntary agreements targeting food waste: a policy assessment in select EU member states’ (REFRESH, 2018).

153 Swaffield et al, above n 70.

154 Bradshaw, above n 5.

155 House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, above n 142, para 22.

156 Strategy, above n 6, p 17.

157 Ibid, pp 100–104.

158 Ibid, pp 100–102. Gleaning networks involve volunteers harvesting food that, often for economic reasons, would not otherwise be harvested.

159 M Mourad and S Finn ‘Opinion | France's Ban on Food Waste Three Years Later’ (Food Tank, 19 June 2019) at https://foodtank.com/news/2019/06/opinion-frances-ban-on-food-waste-three-years-later/ (last accessed 23 December 2019).

160 House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Food Waste in England HC 429 (2017).

161 Strategy, above n 6, p 101; Bradshaw, above n 5.

162 FareShare ‘FareShare encourages a level playing field for food disposal’ (8 September 2015) at http://www.fareshare.org.uk/fareshare-encourages-level-playing-field-for-food-disposal/ (last accessed 23 December 2019).

163 H Sheffield ‘Thousands of tonnes of edible food are being diverted from feeding the hungry’ The Independent (9 February 2016) at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-government-paying-millions-to-turn-food-waste-into-energy-while-needy-go-hungry-a6863401.html (last accessed 23 December 2019).

164 Strategy, above n 6, p 103.

165 Ibid.

166 Mourad and Finn, above n 159; M Mourad ‘Did France really “ban” food waste? The first national food waste regulation, three years on’, Future Food Symposium, Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, 20 June 2019.

167 Though admittedly somewhat modest in quantum, see eg K Farnsworth ‘The British corporate welfare state: public provision for private businesses’ (University of Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute Paper No 24 2015).

168 J Rayner ‘Don't talk about “food poverty” – it's just poverty’ The Guardian (16 May 2019) at https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/may/16/dont-talk-about-food-poverty-jay-rayner (last accessed 23 December 2019).

169 See eg Lee, RP ‘The politics of international agri-food policy: discourses of trade-oriented food security and food sovereignty’ (2013) 22 Environmental Politics 216CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hospes, O and Brons, A ‘Food system governance: a systematic literature review’ in Kennedy, A and Liljeblad, J (eds) Food Systems Governance: Challenges for Justice, Equality and Human Rights (London: Routledge, 2016)Google Scholar; Holt-Giménez, EA Foodie's Guide to Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

170 Directive on Waste, above n 65, Art 4; Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011, SI 2011/988, reg 12.

171 Defra ‘Food and drink waste hierarchy: deal with surplus and waste (statutory guidance)’ (GOV.UK, 18 December 2018) at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-and-drink-waste-hierarchy-deal-with-surplus-and-waste/food-and-drink-waste-hierarchy-deal-with-surplus-and-waste (last accessed 23 December 2019).

172 House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, above n 160.

173 Swaffield et al, above n 70; Welch et al, above n 70.

174 This would seem to confirm arguments made elsewhere that the waste hierarchy has limited practical utility in the context of food: Bradshaw, above n 5.

175 See eg Ayres, I and Braithwaite, JResponsive Regulation: Transcending the Deregulation Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Gunningham, N and Grabosky, PSmart Regulation: Designing Environmental Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

176 Strategy, above n 6, p 103.

177 See eg Orts, EW ‘Reflexive environmental law’ (1994) 89 Northwestern University Law Review 1227Google Scholar; Parker, CThe Open Corporation: Effective Self-Regulation and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

178 Stuart, above n 75.

179 Framing debates by reference to the waste hierarchy ‘masks more fundamental questions as to whether we should be producing the quantities of food, in the way and places that we do’, Bradshaw, above n 5, at 329.

180 Strategy, above n 6, p 103.

181 Ibid, p 105; Agriculture Bill Explanatory Notes (Bill 266) (House of Commons, 2018) p 31. Shortly before this paper was accepted for publication, the future of the Agriculture Bill was rendered uncertain by the calling of a General Election. At the time of editing the proofs of this paper, it was unclear, following the result of the December 2019 General Election, whether the Agriculture Bill would be reintroduced in its current or altered form. Either way, the relevant provisions of the 2017–19 Bill are still useful in exploring the relationship between policy frames and legislative intervention.

182 Agriculture Bill 2017–19 (Bill 292 as amended in Public Bill Committee, 21 November 2018), cl 27; Agriculture Bill Explanatory Notes, above n 181, p 31; Strategy, n 6 above, p 105. While the EU context is beyond the scope of this paper, these powers may end up implementing Directive 2019/633 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships in the food supply chain. On the proposed (rather than the recently agreed) Directive, see eg Schebesta, H et al. ‘Unfair trading practices in the food supply chain: regulating right?’ (2018) 9 European Journal of Risk Regulation 690CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

183 Agriculture Bill Explanatory Notes, above n 181, p 32.

184 Strategy, above n 6, p 105.

185 See T Lang and D Barling ‘The environmental impacts of supermarkets: mapping the terrain and the policy problems’ in Burch and Lawrence, above n 77; Stuart, above n 75.

186 Agriculture Bill Explanatory Notes, above n 181, pp 31–32.

187 Ibid, p 31.

188 Strategy, above n 6, pp 103–104.

189 See eg Héritier, A and Lehmkuhl, D ‘The shadow of hierarchy and new modes of governance’ (2008) 28 Journal of Public Policy 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

190 Agriculture Bill Explanatory Notes, above n 181, p 32.

191 Although for doubts as to whether the RPA has the resources or capability to provide credible enforcement see House of Commons and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Scrutiny of the Agriculture Bill HC 1591 (2018) p 19.

192 Whether agricultural policy is any more concerned with food management remains to be seen; see eg T Lang ‘The new Agriculture Bill has no vision for food’ (Food Research Collaboration, 18 September 2018) at https://foodresearch.org.uk/foodvoices/agriculture-bill-food/ (last accessed 23 December 2019), arguing that the Agricultural Bill is farm, land and finance focused, with no vision for food other than to make it cheaper.

193 Agriculture Bill Explanatory Notes, above n 181, p 31.

194 Ibid.

195 House of Commons and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, above n 191, p 21.

196 Strategy, above n 6, p 104.

197 Extended producer responsibility is a regulatory technique which imposes costs on producers (broadly defined to include retailers) for the post-consumption costs of products; see further Fisher et al, above n 113, pp 550–551; Bradshaw, above n 5.

198 See eg Holt-Giménez et al, above n 78; Parker and Johnson, above n 76; Mourad, above n 70.

199 Agriculture Bill 2017–19, cl 27(10).

200 Strategy, above n 6, p 99 and ch 6 on ‘Global Britain: international leadership’.

201 See eg Scotford and Robinson, above n 61, on the ‘unwieldy legal beast’ that is environmental law.

202 Parker and Johnson, above n 76, p 11.7 (citing Review in Advance version, 10 June 2019).

203 See eg the need to stitch different instruments together within regimes typified by ‘patchwork’ forms of governance, explored by Holley, C and Kennedy, A ‘Governing the energy-water-food nexus: regulating unconventional gas development in Queensland, Australia’ (2019) 59(2) JurimetricsGoogle Scholar.

204 Strategy, above n 6, p 103.

205 Ibid, pp 107–109.

206 WRAP, ‘Food Date Labelling and Storage Advice’ (WRAP, 2017).

207 Bradshaw, above n 5.

208 Stuart, above n 75; Bradshaw, above n 5. See also Feedback ‘No use crying over spilled milk? How wrong date labels are driving milk waste and harming the environment’ (London: Feedback, 2019). Milk is also good example of the nexus between waste, supermarket power and UTPs. See eg Cardwell, MN ‘Farmers, milk prices and rural indignation’ (2015) 5 Oñati Socio-Legal Series 51Google Scholar; Beaton-Wells and Paul-Taylor, above n 77, at 43.

209 Which for the UK, at present, lies at the EU level, so for now beyond the UK's full control, see further Bradshaw, above n 5.

210 I am grateful to Christine Parker for this point.