East Riding of Yorkshire Council says its weekly food waste rollout has drawn 9,000 starter pack requests after six months, with many households using the service for the first time. The council says the project has been as successful as it expected it to be, and the remaining parts of its area are due to switch next February.
Nick Sison on heavier bins
Nick Sison, a refuse driver for East Riding of Yorkshire Council, said the weekly rounds changed the work on the ground. “They're not as heavy, [and] we've been able to use that to our advantage because we've been able to fit a lot more streets into one day,” he said, after his team collected up to 1,800 food waste bins on the busiest days.
Sarah Atkinson, the council’s service manager for waste treatment and disposal, said the weekly service has drawn in households that had not used the system before. “We knew that [people] were already really good at recycling the food waste in the fortnightly service, but what we've found is that it has definitely encouraged more people to do it,” she said.
East Riding of Yorkshire collections
The council said 9,000 households requested starter packs. Atkinson said many of those households had never recycled food before, or had moved into a house without a caddy and did not know what to do. Two thirds of the area covered by East Riding of Yorkshire Council now has weekly food waste collections, after some places moved from fortnightly pickups to weekly service.
In April, the council found that 20% of all rubbish going into general waste was food. Atkinson said, “What the data shows us is a lot of that is packaged food... We're definitely trying to do a bit of a communications campaign going forward,” as the council looks to push more of it into the separate food waste stream. She also said, “Anything in the general bin gets sent off to be disposed of – it gets burned. But if food waste is recycled, it is made into compost and given out to homes and farms, and it is good for the environment.”
Lincolnshire rollout
Since the end of March, households across Hull have been receiving weekly food waste collections. In Lincolnshire, North Kesteven, West Lindsey, Lincoln and South Kesteven now have food waste collections for the first time, and Lincolnshire County Council said the service has made a positive start across those four districts.
“Weekly food waste collections have made a positive start across the first four areas of [the county] to introduce the service, with residents adapting well to the change and participation continuing to build,” the council said. Food waste collected separately is turned into compost and given out to homes and farms, but the April study shows 20% of rubbish in general waste is still food, leaving the next round of collections to do more than just add bins — they still have to pull waste out of the black bag and into the caddy.
