Some 66 tonnes of food waste was collected during the first week of a new separate collection in Wokingham, the borough council has announced.
The initiative aims to increase Wokingham recycling rates after the council found 30% of its residents’ residual waste is food waste.
It hopes to reduce this to 15% with the food waste scheme and bring its total recycling rates closer to 50%.
The council said in a statement: “From 2020, it is likely that councils not reaching a 50% recycling rate will be fined up to £500,000 per annum.”
The council recently rolled out 64,000 delivered food caddies for the new collection.
“Last week’s collections have
showed great promise for our food waste recycling scheme. We’ve had lots of useful feedback and I’m so impressed by the enthusiasm of our residents for joining us in our fight to reduce Wokingham’s carbon footprint.”
“By reducing our food waste we also cut the levels of methane in the atmosphere,” the borough council said. “Methane is a dangerous greenhouse gas and by collecting food waste we can turn that methane into energy to use as fuel. The caddy liners are also recycled and used to generate electricity using Energy from Waste (EfW) technology.”
“We would like to say a huge thank you to all of our residents who have started recycling their food waste,” said Sarah Hollamby, director of locality and customer services.
“Last week’s collections have showed great promise for our food waste recycling scheme. We’ve had lots of useful feedback and I’m so impressed by the enthusiasm of our residents for joining us in our fight to reduce Wokingham’s carbon footprint.
“There’s always room for improvement however, and I urge everyone who hasn’t used their caddy yet to join us. The more food waste we can recycle the better for our environment.”
As part of government’s recently published strategy for resources and waste, it is currently consulting on whether separate weekly food waste collectionsshould be made mandatory for local authorities.