The firm has signed a 15-year deal with Warwickshire county council to build an in-vessel composting facility in Ufton, subject to planning permission, which will process up to 40,000 tonnes of waste a year.
It is hoped that the collections will enable Warwick and other districts to introduce alternate weekly collections of residual waste which can otherwise prove unpopular due to odorous food waste.
Councillor Martin Heatley, Warwickshire's portfolio holder for the environment, said: “Hopefully with the awarding of this contract we will start diverting thousands of tonnes of food waste away from landfill and into composting for reuse.”
A Biffa spokesman said: “We are delighted to have been awarded the contract but it is subject to a planning consent for an in-vessel composting unit at our Ufton landfill site where we are also planning a materials recycling facility.”
While Biffa awaits planning approval for the Ufton site, Warwickshire council has also started working with Nuneaton, Bedford and North Warwickshire borough councils to tender for another food waste treatment facility in the North of the county.
Jo Ingle, waste management project manager at Warwickshire, said: “Warwickshire is a strange-shaped county so it is important to have local waste treatment facilities.”
Composition
The move towards food waste collections in Warwickshire comes just months after the council carried out a waste composition analysis which showed that food waste made up a significant amount of domestic rubbish.
Samples collected between October 2006 and February 2007 showed that in Warwick alone, nearly 40% of all waste in the bin was food, often throw away because it was out of date or too much was prepared. This could mean that nearly 12,000 tonnes of food is sent to landfill each year in the Warwick district alone.
The average percentage that food made up in Warwickshire bins meanwhile rested at 31%.
Ms Ingle said: “The Warwickshire Waste Partnership has made a commitment to boost recycling and composting in Warwickshire to 40-45% and we are hoping food waste collections will help achieve that.”
Register for free to comment