IN ASSOCIATION WITH
AD 2010: POWERING THE WAY FORWARD
Collection services:
making them work
Food waste collection services
can work, they can be affordable
and they can get public support,
but says Adam Read and Sarah
Jane Widdowson of AEA, only if
they are designed with a built in
communications programme.
F
OOD WASTE is getting, and has
been getting, plenty of industry
and media attention particularly
over the last two years. Given
the global interest currently being afforded
to climate change mitigation, and the
philosophies underpinning our renewable
energy policies and the EU Landfill Directive it
is perhaps unusual that is has taken so long
for food waste to make it to the top of the
agenda. However, it is clearly here to stay for
the foreseeable future, with the public and
politicians alike.
An APSE (Association for Public Service
Excellence) report in late 2009 identified
that although 90% of authorities (of their 260
members) were recycling paper, glass, metals address climate change and to recycle and Collectively, the trials provided a new and
and green waste, only 23% were addressing compost more. dedicated service to over 94,000 households,
food waste, with most authorities identifying With an EU Biowaste Directive now and diverted 4,400 tonnes of food waste
this as their most difficult service. gathering momentum the need to source from landfill. Separate food waste collections
No surprises here as five years ago the segregate organics materials, both food and from areas with fortnightly refuse collections
number of authorities with a separate food garden, is becoming increasingly critical, generally achieved higher food waste
waste collection (not one mixed with garden and it could soon become a legislative yields in comparison to collections from
waste) would have numbered less than ten. action. Wales has done this in the recent areas with weekly refuse collections (by
Those that were delivering separate food past by setting a specific material target for on average 23%).
waste services were achieving an average the recycling of food waste through source Participation monitoring was carried out in
participation rate of 66% (although the range segregated solutions, along with their policy 17 of the trial areas. Nine of these achieved
was wide from a disappointing 23% to an statement and capital funding programme to participation rates of 70% or more during the
exceptional 100%). On average 1.9kg of food support the procurement of new AD facilities first phase of monitoring. Clearly the schemes
waste was collected per property per week. to treat this material. Similar approaches are were a success and have provided other
This is a good benchmark against which to now being adopted in Scotland, and although councils with the evidence needed to invest in
assess the performance of other schemes England has yet to set targets for source their own schemes.
as they inevitably come on line this year segregated food wastes it has adopted a AEA’s own experiences of working with
and next. suite of economic measures to support the authorities who have trialled or rolled out
Year on year more authorities are development of AD. food waste schemes mirror those of the
recognising the need to address this waste Some authorities have responded to the WRAP study. In one such trial in the districts
stream in terms of meeting statutory UK agenda set by WRAP in terms of separate of Hinkley & Bosworth and Harborough in
recycling targets (and those of the EU). In our food waste collections. Leicestershire in 2007/08 over 2000 residents
experience, the public, even with the constant During 2007-08 WRAP provided funding received a weekly food waste collection
coverage of ‘slop buckets’ in the daily press to 19 local authorities to carry out extensive scheme. Participation levels exceeded 70%,
are generally supportive of the need to trials of separate food waste collections. while 30% of residents stated they threw away
8 March 11 2010 www.recyclingwasteworld.co.uk
Recycling
& WASTE WORLD
008-09 LOCAL AUTHORITY.indd 88-09 LOCAL AUTHORITY.indd 8 88/3/10 17:58:44/3/10 17:58:44
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