Waste and recycling company Shanks has launched a new separate food waste collection service for businesses in Scotlands two biggest cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh, at no extra cost to its commercial customers.
The company, which began by offering the service to existing commercial waste clients, has now rolled it out to new customers taking any combination of its general waste, glass or food waste services. It told letsrecycle.com that it had seen a strong initial response to the move.
Food waste collected under the scheme is being sent for treatment at Shanks recently-opened 8 million anaerobic digestion facility at Cumbernauld, near Glasgow, which it developed under a joint venture with Dundee-based Energen Biogas (see letsrecycle.com story).
And, speaking to letsrecycle.com about the new offering, Shanks Northern Regional Director, Robin Stevenson, highlighted the legislative drivers which meant that it was an ideal time for businesses to sign up to the new service.
The Scottish Governments Zero Waste Plan set out its vision for a zero waste society. Thinking is now changing and waste is being seen as a resource this coupled with the possibility of landfill bans for certain types of material means that businesses are looking for new ways to manage the waste they produce he said.
He also noted that there were both financial and environmental benefits in diverting material from landfill and from generating energy from the waste.
Commenting on the response to the service so far, Mr Stevenson said Theres a tremendous amount of interest from our existing customers, especially those producing significant volumes of food waste such as hotels, restaurants and bars.
Businesses that sign up to the food waste collections are provided with a 240 litre wheeled bin which they are then encouraged to put bags of food waste into.
Cost
Its offered at no extra cost to businesses, were just asking them to separate the material out, Mr Stevenson said.
He also revealed the company was exploring ways to make the service available to businesses which dont have space to store another wheeled bin.
If people dont have room for the bins were looking at introducing fluorescent bags to separate out of their other waste on a packing line, he said.
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