From 4 July, Biffa will process separate food waste from 55,000 properties in the borough at its flagship anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Cannock.
The local authority, which has collected food waste separately since 2010, hopes that by contracting the work to Biffa it can increase the capture rate of the material from 3,000 to 3,500 tonnes per year.
To achieve this, the council will start providing free plastic bin liners to residents. Andrew Bird, recycling and waste services manager, told letsrecycle.com that the council was responding to the impact of the 5p carrier bag charge – which it is claimed has impacted householder participation in the food waste service.
Trial
It follows a trial in which the bags and ‘No Food Waste’ stickers were rolled out to 12,000 properties resulting in a 13% increase in the amount of food waste collected.
Trevor Nicoll, head of recycling, waste and fleet services at the council, said: “We hope that by working with Biffa we can raise the general issue of food waste with our residents. Together we would like to encourage families to use our food collection service more as there is still a lot of ‘unavoidable’ food waste in our residents’ general waste bins.”
He added: “This contract with Biffa is part of a wider service change including the insourcing of the collection service and moving to a weekly kerbside recycling service which has been designed to save more than £500,000 per year.”
Chris Savage, general manager of Biffa’s Cannock AD plant, added: “We look forward to supporting Newcastle-under-Lyme borough council with their drive to encourage more households to dispose of their food waste correctly so that it can be collected and converted into energy.”
Contracts
From July the authority will also be bringing its dry recycling collections in-house. The contract is currently delivered by Acumen Waste Services.
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