Council to collect scraps from eateries (From The Oxford Times)

Council to collect scraps from eateries

3:00pm Friday 27th January 2012 in News By Liam Sloan

nAndrew Lund-Yates, left, with chef Neal Berry, centre, and binman Martin Kosciolek

Food waste from restaurants, market stalls, conference centres and cafés is to be collected and recycled under a new £55,000 council project.

The service is to be offered free-of-charge by the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership for three months, before businesses can choose whether to pay to continue having their food scraps collected.

Oxfordshire County Council and Oxford City Council, which are members of the partnership, won the funding from ReMade South East in October after a year-long pilot project.

The city council will take delivery of a new collection vehicle in March, visiting a total of 85 businesses three times a week to weigh and take away food waste.

Currently the waste partnership is hiring a vehicle to carry out a small-scale pilot project.

At the end of the trial, businesses will be offered a paid-for service at commercial rates.

Unlike householders who pay council tax to fund their waste collections, businesses make their own commercial arrangements.

The waste partnership hopes firms will make savings by having their food waste recycled rather than collected and sent to landfill sites by more expensive commercial operators.

The city councillor responsible for Oxford’s Cleaner, Greener drive, John Tanner, said: “We are thrilled to get this money through the partnership.

“Tons of food is sent to landfill by pubs, restaurants and colleges in Oxford every year, where it creates damaging methane.

“Now every business and institution will be able to recycle their discarded food just like Oxford residents can.”

Andrew Lund-Yates, general manager of The Oxford Centre in Banbury Road, one of the businesses involved in the pilot project, said: “The food waste trial has been hugely beneficial to us and we are pleased it is now being rolled out across the city. The service is fantastic.”