Resources

This publication and accompanying tool support people across the food supply chain, particularly those calculating the water footprint of food and setting science-based targets, to:

• Better understand and connect food loss and waste reductions with their efforts to reduce systems-wide water use.
• Calculate and communicate the environmental benefits of FLW reductions.
• Link those benefits to their science-based water use reduction targets.

These resources lay the foundation for guidance to organisations and governments in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who are seeking to measure and tackle the water footprint associated with food imports, food waste and redistributed food.

The 2024 Textiles Market Situation Report updates on the present state of the UK textiles market.

Terminology can inadvertently imply use or value, which can lead to barriers or opportunities in how textiles are considered or handled. A lack of standardisation, clarity and consistency among stakeholders in the textiles sector is an issue that inhibits partnerships, policy development, and can prevent progress towards a circular textiles economy.

Welcome to the WRAP Food Trends & KPI Survey, a bi-annual exploration of UK households' attitudes, knowledge, and behaviours related to food waste. As the longest-running survey of its kind, it offers a unique lens into the ever-evolving landscape of food waste in the UK.

The Food Tracker survey is a survey of UK citizens that gathers evidence on food waste attitudes, knowledge, and behaviour. It is the largest and longest-running series of its kind, having been undertaken by WRAP since 2007¹. It is designed to inform WRAP’s activities but also to assess any changes in attitudes and behaviours over time. 

WRAP has developed one of the most comprehensive open-source databases mapping over 200 textiles sorters, pre-processors, recyclers, and yarn spinners (who work with recycled fibres), operating within the UK and Europe.

This Roadmap focuses on how to achieve the target of collecting 90% of glass packaging for recycling in the UK by 2030, with a focus on remelt. It recognises the importance of not only increasing the quantity of glass collected but also the quality – as this impacts the ability to remelt back into glass containers – and that the collection scheme design is pivotal for this. 

As much as 80% of a textile product’s environmental impact is determined at the design stage. Therefore, the decisions made by design and product development teams have a huge impact on a product’s environmental footprint – from the raw materials used, to how the product is manufactured, the length of time it is kept in use and what happens to it when it is no longer desired or reaches the end of its usable life.

There is a lot to think about, which is why we have created our Circular Design Toolkit - a go-to resource for the fashion and textiles industry.

The 2022 Plastics Market Situation report updates on the amount of plastic packaging Placed On the Market (POM), collection rates, recycling rates, and provides an update on key developments over the past few years highlighting the challenges and opportunities ahead.

• Fall in plastic packaging placed on the market
• Movement away from rigid plastic packaging towards lightweight and flexible plastics in the consumer sector.  
• Domestic recycling of plastic has increased to 53%.
• Planned recycling capacity increases will be a boost but will still fall well below current levels of plastic packaging consumption.  
• Collection rates are improving for plastic packaging with more flexible plastic, rigid plastics, plastic bottles and PTTs being collected at kerbside. 

In November 2021, 65 stakeholders and partners from across all sectors of the UK food industry and water stewardship community made a commitment to collectively address water risk in the food and drink supply chain across the world and joined WRAP’s Water Roadmap, embarking on a collective journey to address water risk in our food & drink supply chain. 

This report tracks progress and gives an update on achievements, whilst outlining the urgent action needed to not only deliver on targets but create a sustainable supply chain and prioritise climate action.

Standard bread is the second most wasted food in UK households and represents 80% of all bakery waste in the UK.

Previous WRAP research has shown that 41% of edible household food waste is a result of food not being used in time. A date label was cited as the trigger for the disposal of 600,000 tonnes (16%) of edible food waste.