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Food waste


collection service is obviously key, additional benefits (such as bin sanitisation services, customisable collection times, and the ability to accept packaged food) can really help to reduce staff workload and further streamline both processes and overall costs.


My guidance is to start the process early to ensure that you do not get caught out later down the line. The last thing care home managers need right now is to rush into a last minute agreement that ends up costing too much money, requiring extensive staff training and is not flexible around day-to- day operations. Instead, look towards the long-term suppliers that have invested heavily in the ability to offer market-leading services. Talk to them early, understand how you could work together and make it the right decision for your team.


Proving that food waste recycling really works


The Oaks is a state-of-the-art care home in New Earswick, York, run by the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT). It is an integral part of the Hartrigg Oaks (HO) retirement village, a community of around 400 people.


About 40 residents live in the care home, and about 250 more live in the 152 bungalows that surround the Oaks Centre. The centre is the lively heart of the community – as well as the care home, it contains a large restaurant, a busy coffee shop, and a large kitchen area with around 20 staff. This serves not only the two eateries, but also the many care home residents who take their meals in the care home. Each day it also delivers meals to bungalow residents in their homes. In addition, the Oaks Centre provides the base for the 40 or so trained carers who support bungalow residents where necessary – as well as around 60 care home staff, the JRHT management team, and 20 kitchen staff. With many people and multiple activities, the volume of potential food waste is considerable. In the past, HO did not recycle its food


waste. Instead, it was simply disposed of by a macerator – a machine that chews up disposable food and flushes it away as waste matter.


The JRHT authorities were well on the


way to ordering a replacement, when news of these plans reached the Hartrigg Oaks Sustainability Group, a joint committee of both residents and senior JRHT staff that had already successfully overseen a number


March 2025 www.thecarehomeenvironment.com


of ecologically desirable innovations. The group pointed out to JRHT that the replacement of the macerator provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability. JRHT agreed, and the decision was taken that the HO kitchen should switch from treating food waste as ‘rubbish’ to recycling it. Of course, it also avoided spending a considerable sum on a new macerator! After careful consideration, we were


appointed to provide a food waste recycling service for HO. Once a week for the last six years, three or four 240-litre wheelie bins of discarded food have been collected, with the food waste taken to its anaerobic digestion site in Doncaster. However, the successful recycling of


food waste from the HO kitchen is only half of the story. Once this service had been established, the Sustainability Group turned their attention to the question of how best to meet the recycling wishes of sustainability-minded residents of the 152 bungalows. This was a more complex matter, because


it involved distinguishing between food waste that is suitable for composting, and food waste that is not. Every HO bungalow has a small garden, and many households additionally take over nearby areas of the grounds to extend their gardening territory. In addition, two areas of the grounds are given over to allotments, so there is plenty of demand for compost. The solution was clear. There had to be scope for bungalow residents to use some of their food waste as compost and dispose of the rest in a sustainable manner. In other


words, any such household needed to have two small bins available for recycling food waste – one for composting and one for ReFood.


Currently, HO residents fill between a third and a half of a bin to us each week, so between 80 and 120 litres. The development of recycling food waste at HO in the last few years is a shining example that many other social groups of all kinds can follow with confidence.


With new legislation on the horizon,


managers should act now by putting efficient and cost-effective food waste recycling systems in place. That way, they will be fully prepared for when the ban comes into force and food waste recycling becomes not just desirable, but a necessity.


n


Richard Poskitt


Rchard Poskitt is the commercial manager at SARIA UK & ReFood, the UK’s largest integrated food chain recycling and renewable energy business.


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