Ambitious targets to cut down on annual 60 million tonnes of food waste in Europe

Every year, 60 million tonnes of food waste, or 131kg per person, and 12.6 million tonnes of textile waste are generated in the EU. Clothing and footwear alone account for 5.2 million tonnes of waste, equivalent to 12kg of waste per person every year. And it is estimated that less than 1% of all textiles worldwide are recycled into new products.

Now MEPs want to increase binding waste reduction targets to at least 20% in food processing and manufacturing, and 40% per capita in retail, restaurants, food services and households.

The targets are higher than those proposed by the European Commission on the proposed revision of the Waste Framework Directive, which aims at preventing and reduce waste from food and textiles across the EU.

The position, approved by the Environment Committee by 72 votes and none against, heads to the plenary in a bid to ensure EU countries ensure the new targets are achieved nationally by 2030.

MEPs also want the Commission to evaluate the possibility and make appropriate legislative proposals to introduce higher targets for 2035 – at least 30% and 50% and food and manufacturing, and retail, restauraurants and households respectively.

“We are providing focused solutions to reduce food waste, such as promoting ‘ugly’ fruits and veggies, keeping an eye on unfair market practices, clarifying date labelling and donating unsold-but-consumable food,” said Polish rapporteur Anna Zalewska (ECR).

“For textiles, we patch up loopholes by also including non-household products, carpets and mattresses, as well as sales via online platforms. We also request a textile waste reduction target, with an oversight of exported used textiles. Better infrastructure to increase separate collection should be complemented by sorting mixed municipal waste more efficiently, so that items which can be recycled are extracted before being sent to the incinerator or landfill.”

The new rules would also set up extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes, through which economic operators that make textiles available on the EU market would cover the costs for their separate collection, sorting and recycling. Member states would have to establish these schemes 18 months after the entry into force of the directive – compared to 30 months proposed by the Commission.

In parallel, EU countries would need to ensure, by 1 January 2025, the separate collection of textiles for re-use, preparing for re-use and recycling.

These rules would cover textile products such as clothing and accessories, blankets, bed linen, curtains, hats, footwear, mattresses and carpets, including products that contain textile-related materials such as leather, composition leather, rubber or plastic.