Food recycling scheme gets instant results (From The Oxford Times)

Food recycling scheme gets instant results

2:10pm Sunday 21st June 2009 in

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EIGHTY-FIVE tonnes of food waste from kitchens in south Oxfordshire was diverted from landfill in the first week of the district's new waste collection scheme.

South Oxfordshire District Council launched the system a fortnight ago, to radically improve its recycling rates.

Each home was issued with one black and one green wheelie bin for bi-weekly collections of rubbish and recycling.

Householders were also issued with a smaller kitchen caddy for weekly food waste collections.

South Oxfordshire is the first district in the county to recycle food waste in this way.

A council spokesman said the 85 tonnes was about 15 per cent of household waste.

She said: “At this rate, the district will boost its recycling rates significantly.”

Three food waste recycling centres worth £17m will be bulit at Cassington, Ardley and a site near Crowmarsh Gifford to turn waste into electricity and compost.

Oxfordshire County Council has awarded the contract to west Oxfordshire company Agrivert, which will build and operate the plants over the next two years.

Power generated from the waste food will provide electricity for more than one in 10 homes in Oxford.

Last week, David Dodds, the council’s cabinet member for waste, said about 350 homes had still not received their bins, but assured residents the problem would be sorted soon.

He said: “I’m pleased we’ve had a positive response to the new food waste collections.

“The amount we have collected so far is very promising.

“One of the issues we would like to clarify is some confusion about food waste going into the same truck as other rubbish and recycling.

“We empty residents’ smaller food waste bins into a larger wheeled bin, and then empty it into a compartment within the truck. The trucks have two compartments, one for waste or recycling (depending on the collection) and one for food waste.

“It may look like it’s all being loaded into the same place, but it is being emptied into separate compartments.”

He said: “We’re doing our best to get the bins out to these residents, and this should happen within the next week.

“The introduction of wheeled bins has also prompted a number of residents to request assisted collections, and we’re working through these requests.

Food waste recycling collections are set to start in the Bicester and Kidlington areas of the Cherwell district in the autumn.