Waste: Serving up a first with weekly food-waste collection

13 August 2008
 
Cardiff claims to be the first city council in the UK to roll out a weekly food waste-collection service to every household.

The new operation will be launched in October, and is expected to increase the city’s recycling and composting rates by 10%, surpassing the Welsh Assembly Government target of 40% by 2010.

The current recycling rate is 33%. Each household will receive a free kitchen caddy and ventilated biodegradable liner, based on a scheme used extensively in Scandinavia. The proposed biodegradable bags are made from a starch material, which allows the food waste to breathe and dry it. This cuts the volume and weight of the waste and dramatically reduces the smell.

Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council recently carried out a successful trial on ventilated caddy schemes on 500 properties. Of the 75% of volunteers who responded to its questionnaire, 94% said they were satisfied with the system, and 84% said they would continue to use it. However, Cardiff will roll out its scheme without trialling it first.

Councillor Margaret Jones, executive member for the environment, said: ‘The proposed scheme has been used extensively in Scandinavia to great success for many years. The best example is Stavanger in Norway, which has a similar number of households, collecting waste in ventilated bio bags and composts in the same way as we plan to.’

The waste will be processed through a special composting facility and the end product will be used for land restoration.

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