The Christmas and New Year period often results in high levels of waste, including and especially food waste. Were there any initiatives worked up by ReLondon, with Boroughs, to help reduce waste across this period?

ReLondon is a statutory body of the Mayor of London and London’s boroughs to which I appoint the Chair, and it plays a vital role in improving waste and resource management and supporting the transition to a circular economy across the capital. Reducing waste, especially food waste, is an important part of helping to achieve a net zero carbon London by 2030. Through the London Recycles campaign, ReLondon targeted advertising throughout December [2021] at residents of the 19 boroughs with the lowest recycling rates. This gave advice on reducing waste and recycling food, paper, card, and Christmas trees and provided sustainable gift ideas. The campaign was delivered through a variety of outputs to maximise reach, including ad bikes cycling in high footfall areas, animated YouTube adverts and content on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, designed to reach over one million Londoners. ReLondon also promoted advice on Christmas-related waste topics through broadcast media. ITV, for example, carried four news segments in December [2021], covering advice on recycling over Christmas. ReLondon has also released a series of videos to highlight the impact of COVID-19 on heavy goods vehicle (HGV) driver shortages on recycling collections across the capital. These asked Londoners to continue recycling, be patient with collections and reduce their waste to ease the burden on frontline services. This advice was also provided in a toolkit to all of London’s boroughs for use in their own local messaging.

I supported this work from City Hall by running a social media campaign, Go Green This Christmas, to raise awareness of this issue and information was provided promptly on the GLA website to give tips for Londoners on how to make their Christmas more sustainable. Finally, with support from my Green New Deal Fund, ReLondon has provided financial and advisory support to The Felix Project, London’s largest food redistribution charity, which does fantastic work, tackling food waste and food poverty. In December [2021] alone, The Felix Project rescued over 1,200 tonnes of surplus food to provide three million meals to vulnerable Londoners.

Thank you very much, Mr Mayor, and clearly this is an area where there is still much to do, very valuable work that will help with addressing the climate emergency. You ended there by talking about food waste and, as you know, food waste makes up about 26% of London’s household waste, which is about 780,000 tonnes altogether. If all of that food waste was separately collected and sent for anaerobic digestion, it would save about 375,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent emissions every year. I know that your team has been agreeing Reduction and Recycling Plans (RRPs) with all the boroughs, but we still have nine boroughs that are not separating out food waste. Is there anything more that can be done to persuade those boroughs towards that? I know the Government is stepping up on this now and talking about 2024, but can we move any faster because this is such an important area?

Yes, it is a real problem and, by the way, thank you for your advocacy on this really important issue and also your education that you do to Londoners by talking about there being more we can do to reduce, particularly food, waste. There is some good news, and you are right in relation to the plans we have had. Twenty-eight boroughs now have separate food waste collections or are undertaking trials and pilots, which is progress. The borough we both live in has been slow to join the party, but it is now talking about and is doing pilots and trials. Of the five remaining boroughs where there is not even a trial or a pilot, four of them have got a long-term contract that does not end until 2027 so it is a bit more challenging. The other one is Barnet, which had previously committed to reintroduce food waste collection by April 2022, but it is now seeking to delay this, and we are going to continue conversations with them. What we really need is Londoners to put pressure on their councils. “People power”, to rephrase a quote from a famous Tooting boy - not me - Citizen Wolfie Smith [tv character], is what we need, Londoners putting pressure on their councils to do much, much more for the reasons that you know well.

It is really important that we all do. I know that we talk quite a lot about the number of incinerators in London and also the potential for increasing incinerators. It has been very disappointing - and I know you wrote to Government - about the increase in incineration at Belvedere. The only way to really persuade people that we do not need more incinerators - because the figures at the moment used through the Development Consent Order (DCO), which came from Government to agree that additional incinerator - is because we are still not doing enough to reduce food waste.

One of the things that would necessitate councils doing more is if they had to because there was not capacity to burn the stuff or to land fill. It is a chicken and egg. If councils think there is more capacity so they do not need to make more progress on food, they will do that. That is why we really need a sort of pincer movement from the Government and from Londoners and ourselves to put pressure on the councils. Look, councils have difficult financial challenges. There may be some who may need to renegotiate their contracts and stuff, but we need councils to understand that we support them having the responsibility for refuse and waste. I do not want powers taken away from them - devolution should mean the powers are going down - but it should bring with it a responsibility to do more because you have highlighted the figures. That sort of carbon tonnes lost does not need to be lost if there was less food waste.

I wanted to also ask you some more about what we could do in terms of the logistical supply chain. There is also an awful lot of food that gets thrown away, and 836,000 tonnes of imported food is lost or thrown away before it reaches London. I have run out of time, so I am not going to be able to ask you that one, sorry, but thank you very much.