WRAP works in partnership to help businesses, individuals and communities improve resource efficiency. The funding will allow Paper Round to invest in its infrastructure and improve the efficiency of its service, driving down the cost of food waste recycling for small and medium sized businesses in Sussex.

Brighton Paper Round will provide bespoke starter packs to each new food waste recycling customer. Customer requirements will be assessed in a start up meeting so that from the outset caddies, bins, staff communication and collection frequency, are matched perfectly to the individual needs of each business.

One major barrier to businesses starting to recycle their food waste is the cost compared with a general waste collection. As landfill tax rises £8 per tonne each year clever businesses will look for ways in which they can avoid increases in their costs at the same time as improving their environmental performance- a good food recycling scheme provides the perfect solution.

Food waste is a big problem in the UK with over 10 million tonnes of household and trade food waste ending up in landfill annually - this contributes to climate change by releasing methane into the atmosphere. If food is separated from other wastes it can become a valuable resource being processed at a high-tech Anaerobic Digestion facility and turned into a bio-fertiliser that can be used to grow crops and produce energy that is put back into the national grid.

As part of the project, Brighton Paper Round will sign up a total of 74 small and medium sized offices and 93 restaurants and cafes over a 2 year period. This will lead to an additional 1200 tonnes of food waste being diverted from landfill annually; estimated by WRAP to save 720 tonnes of C02 equivalent.