The Food Is Not Rubbish project

The Food Is Not Rubbish project set out to explore and understand how schools can tackle the issue of food waste in the school dining room. When food ends up wasted, it undermines broader sustainability goals.

As of March 2025, new regulations under the Environment Act 2021 require workplaces in England with ten or more employees - including schools - to separately collect food waste, dry recyclables, and residual waste. Importantly, if a school generates more than 5 kg of food waste weekly, this will require separate waste collection at additional cost to the school. The importance of reducing food waste is therefore particularly timely to help schools comply with environmental regulations and address sustainability goals. Reducing food waste can also support children’s health and wellbeing by encouraging them to consume good food. Within this context, in this impact-focused project, we aimed to synthesise evidence and generate insights to support schools with implementing strategies and interventions to reduce food waste at lunchtimes. 

The project built upon our previous UKRI-funded BeanMeals research, which revealed significant levels of food waste in schools. We found that school staff are motivated to tackle food waste, especially given the new policy regulations. However, schools currently lack evidence-based guidance on effective food-waste reduction strategies 

• We conducted 19 semi-structured interviews with academics, project leaders, school staff, local authority officers, and waste management professionals. We wanted to know their thoughts on school food waste, what reduction strategies or interventions they had already implemented, and any areas of concern. Common themes included the need for repeated multi-level interventions, time constraints of school lunchtimes, and embedding food waste education into the curriculum. Participants identified practical solutions such as composting and noted both policy opportunities and challenges. 
    
• We created two case studies to highlight areas of best practice: Food for Thought, a not-for-profit school meals provider in Liverpool and Bind Project/Eat Smart, a community-based initiative promoting food waste reduction and awareness among primary pupils. Additionally, an evidence review of 14 academic studies identified effective interventions that informed our co-design work in schools.
• Partnerships were established with New Lubbesthorpe Primary School (Leicestershire County) and Stokes Wood Primary School (Leicester City). We conducted a range of food waste-focused activities with the schools including staff information sessions, a school assembly, and pupil-led poster campaigns. We also conducted lunchtime observations and introduced a practical waste-measurement system to help schools monitor food waste in the dining room. Co-design “dotmocracy” sessions enabled pupils to propose their own waste-reduction ideas, which were later discussed with school leadership to assess feasibility. 
• The project concluded with a joint session involving pupils from both schools, where they learned about composting through interactive activities. The children reflected on their learning from the food-waste programme and created their own wormeries, reinforcing the connection between food-waste reduction and environmental sustainability.

The Food Is Not Rubbish project aims to equip schools with evidence, practical tools and pupil-engaging methods to reduce food waste, improve sustainability and support healthy eating practices within the school environment. To achieve broader impact from this project, we are currently working with the national charity, School Food Matters, to co-design a toolkit that will support schools with implementing a range of different strategies and approaches that can be tailored to different needs and contexts.

We hope that this, together with embedding supportive infrastructure and culture, will mean that schools can feel empowered to significantly tackle food waste.