Last week I was lucky enough to have the chance to visit Brussels in order to participate in a European conference on food waste in the urban environment. It was a first opportunity for me to explore how issues that are familiar to us in the UK are seen elsewhere, both within our neighbouring countries and by the European Union itself.

Some mention was made of the revised Waste Framework Directive, which, among other things, committed the European Union to the waste hierarchy. There was also some mention of the impending green paper (due to be published on the 3rd December) which would set out priorities in the dealing of, as it was referred to, 'biowaste'.

Among the speakers, the UK was well represented by the Waste and Resources Action Programme, which impressed delegates with its array of statistics relating to the waste of edible food; there were interesting case studies of activity in Brussels, Rennes, Porto and Catalunya; and we were treated to a round table featuring prominent EU politicians who appeared to lean, to a large extent, on the notion that the complexity of the Union of 27 countries would make it tricky to anticipate a universal approach to food waste collection. Fair enough, although maybe not altogether that helpful.

Rather than go through everything that was talked about over the two half-days, here's my neat-ish (professional) summary of some of what I gathered during my 24 hours or so in Brussels:

• a whole new set of networking skills is required: it's one thing to be confident enough to speak to people you've never met in a professional context, but it's quite another to have to deal with the uncertainty around the language that the delegates are most comfortable speaking;
• the burden of responsibility placed on interpreters is considerable: this event was presented primarily in English and in French, which was fine for most delegates, and for me; but when confronted by Flemish, Portuguese or even Spanish, I was reliant on translators doing a good interpretative job of what the speakers were saying. It takes a surprising amount of concentration to fully absorb what was being transmitted, and I'm not sure I did a particularly good job of it;
• the devil is the detail: if everything that was lost in translation were gathered in one place, how many Olympic swimming pools would it fill? A friend, resident of Brussels, recalled a story of a translator who, rather than interpret a joke specific to the language it was being told in, instead mentioned that the speaker was making a funny joke and that it would be a good idea to laugh... now. When you appreciate the minutiae of policy-making, you realise how much detail can be lost through the filter of translation and interpretation;
• it's all about scale: we look at the situation in London and see one London authority, 16 waste disposal authorities and 32 local authorities (plus the City). We talk about how priorities can differ from one borough to the next; how many languages are spoken in one borough; how much ethnic diversity is present in as little a unit as one ward. Just imagine, then, what it must be like to deal with 27 countries with all their cultural, social, political, even meteorological differences (in some parts of Portugal, food waste from businesses is collected daily). It's no wonder that European policy takes such a long time to be formulated;
• it's probably quite easy to hold the floor at a debate: the room in which the conference took place featured microphones for every delegate, activated by a small button on a console in front of us. The room had two channels - one for the chairperson, and another for everyone else. It was easy to imagine a situation where a particularly keen, or mischievous - or clumsy - delegate might repeatedly interrupt a speaker by hijacking the channel. I accidentally cut off Tom Quested of WRAP just as he was about to start his presentation, but rapidly managed to correct my error before, I think, anyone noticed. It was only because I had foreseen such an accident that I knew exactly what I needed to do...

From both a professional and a personal perspective, this was an exciting and revealing trip into a world that we should probably become far more aware of. It became clear, once I had engaged with a few delegates, that there are plenty of organisations in the heart of Europe with which we can - and should - ally ourselves for an even more strategic intervention into government policy. This is something that I'll be trying to keep a grip on in the coming months.

More details to follow, hopefully...