The project aims to see if a food waste recycling service could be offered to residents of flats above shops in Islington and other boroughs, according to the waste authority. It said that this amounts to around 9,000 households in Islington alone.
The three-month trial is to be delivered by the council in partnership with NLWA and will see one street bin set up for every 33 households, with the aim of encouraging 220 households to participate.
The bins are to be emptied “at least once a week” as well as regularly cleaned and monitored.
The issue with recycling in flats has typically been the lack of space for recycling or composting, with bags of waste collected from the pavement. The communal street bins for food waste are hoped to help solve this, the NLWA said. Without private containers on the pavement, collection of food waste from flats above shops has been impractical, it added.
The NLWA said both the waste authority and council officers would visit homes on the Holloway Road to inform residents about the service and to give out kitchen caddies and liners.
Additionally, resident survey is planned to be conducted over the course of the trial “to help assess residents’ motivations, use of the service and any barriers”. And, the collected food waste is set to be weighed in a bid to evaluate the scheme’s success in terms of quantity.
‘Critical’
The NLWA outlined the importance of recycling food in combatting the climate emergency, explaining that it helps to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. Moreover, food waste can generate electricity and be made into fertiliser.
Cllr Rowena Champion, Islington council’s executive member for environment, air quality, and transport, said: “We know that supporting a circular economy and reducing waste including food waste is critical to creating a greener future, and the council is continuing to work hard to increase recycling in the borough.
“By trialling a food waste recycling service for flats above shops, we can help support hundreds of households to make more environmentally friendly choices about how they dispose of their food waste.
“We look forward to seeing the benefits this will bring to local people, with a view to rolling the service out to thousands of households if the trial is successful.”
Service
Amongst what can be recycled using the service, the local authority listed dairy products, coffee grounds, meat, fruit and veg as well as pet food.
It added that bins, leaflets, caddies and liners will, too, be provided for free, warning residents not to use plastic bags, as these cannot be composted. Instead, the council suggested residents collect free compostable bags from their local library.
In 2015, Islington council took the decision to scrap kerbside food waste collection in favour of communal collection points in Tollington Ward. The council then reasoned that this step would help the local authority slash costs (see letsrecycle.com story).
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