The pilot scheme, launched earlier this month, takes place across 1,200 homes in Hale in Widnes and Heath in Runcorn and sees food waste collected weekly from kitchen caddies rolled out by the Merseyside-based council.
The service has been launched in a bid to reduce the borough’s £3 million per year residual waste disposal costs.
Food waste collected from the properties will be sent to ReFood’s anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Widnes – with Halton claiming that residents will be able to recycle unused food still in its packaging.
The Widnes AD opened in 2014 at a cost of £20 million with capacity to treat 120,000 tonnes of food waste per year (see letsrecycle.com story).
Participation
If enough residents participate in the scheme, Halton adds that it could extend the food waste recycling service to other homes across the borough.
Commenting on the pilot, Councillor Stef Nelson, executive board member for the Environment, explained food waste makes up a “significant part” of the domestic waste stream.
He said: “Not only does it contaminate materials that could otherwise be recycled, it is also very expensive to deal with when placed in the black bin and mixed with general waste.
“Recycling food waste, particularly via ReFood’s anaerobic digestion process, delivers significant environmental benefits, not only reducing the amount of waste that requires costly treatment or disposal, but reducing harmful greenhouse gases and generating renewable energy.”
‘Benefits’
Cllr Nelson added: “The real benefit of working with local ReFood is the company’s ability to take food waste in packaging, which makes it even easier for residents to recycle it. Every pound spent on dealing with general waste is not available to spend on more important services so it’s really important that people recycle their food waste and I would encourage all residents in the pilot areas to do so.”
Philip Simpson, commercial director at ReFood, said: “We’re delighted to be working with Halton Borough Council – with our plant on the doorstep, recycling local food waste and turning it in to renewable energy makes perfect sense.
“It’s vitally important that we keep food waste out of landfill – it is an extremely valuable resource and one that has negative environmental effects if left to rot in landfill.”
In 2014/15, Halton achieved a combined recycling, composting and reuse rate of 46.8%, up from around 39% the previous year. But in October, the council stopped offering incentives to residents to recycle – blaming cuts in its funding from central government (see letsrecycle.com story).
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