Bath & North East Somerset Council has announced that residents in the area will have recycled over 10,000 tonnes of food waste by the end of the year, just two years after food waste collections were started.
Initiated in October 2010 to ‘reduce costs to the local taxpayer through costly landfill tax charges, cut carbon emissions, and make the streets cleaner’ and used by 52 per cent of local households (according to council figures from November 2011), the food waste collection service recycled 4,296 tonnes in the first full year and is expected to have recycled over 10,600 tonnes by the end of this financial year.
The council is now asking residents to further their recycling habits, as 35 per cent of the content of the average bin could be recycled.
Bath & North East Somerset Councillor David Dixon, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, said: “It is excellent news that so many households are taking advantage of Bath & North East Somerset Council’s weekly food waste recycling service. Reaching the ten thousand tonne barrier by the end of the year would be a terrific community achievement.
“We need to continue to hammer the message home about how important it is for people to take part because more than a third of the content of the average bin is food waste that we could recycle. Our monitoring tells us that half of households recycle their food waste, which leaves the other half who need more convincing.”
The council will now be hosting a series of recycling road shows, “targeted work in local communities”, and “on-going campaigning” to encourage more households to recycle their food waste.
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How will the government and DMOs address the challenges of including glass in DRS while ensuring a level playing field across the UK?
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