Artist's impression of the giant waste caddy

Campaign group Waste Awareness Wales (WAW) has announced that it will be touring Wales with a three-metre high food waste caddy from tomorrow (26 September), to encourage more people to recycle their food waste.

The ‘giant’ inflatable caddy will be visiting Wrexham, Cardiff and Swansea, and events will be organised by WAW in conjunction with the three local authorities.

Events will take place on the following dates:

• Wrexham: Thursday 26 September, at Queens Square, from 10am-4pm;
• Cardiff: Friday 4 October, on Queen Street (Churchill Way end), from 10am-4pm; and
• Swansea: Saturday 5 October, at the Princess Way entrance of Castle Square, within the city centre, from 10am-4pm.

Visitors of the events will be asked to make a pledge to reduce and recycle ‘unavoidable’ food waste. All completed pledges will then be entered into a prize draw and participating visitors will receive a pledge sticker for their kerbside caddy.

‘Only capturing around 39 per cent of food waste’

According to WAW, despite Welsh recycling services covering over 93 per cent of households, Welsh councils are ‘only’ capturing around 39 per cent of all household waste.

Moreover, Wales produces an estimated 220,000 tonnes of household food waste every year. On a wider scale, WRAP figures show that around 7.3 million tonnes of food waste is produced by UK households each year, and recent data from WRAP’s Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW) campaign found that London residents alone could save £79 million in costs by reducing the amount of food waste they produce by 14 per cent.

Some food waste is ‘unavoidable’, such as tea bags, vegetable peelings and bones, but WAW claims that ‘many’ people are disposing of such waste in their black bin bag, despite the fact that these can be disposed of in municipal food waste collection services.

Andrew Osborne, Recycling Officer at WAW, said: “The best thing we can do with our food is avoid wasting it in the first place by enjoying it and using it up. For the unavoidable food items left over such as eggshells and bones, you should always separate it out from the general bin and put it in your caddy provided for you by your council.

“We encourage all attending the event to complete the food waste pledge. Studies have shown that those pledging to recycle are more likely to change their behaviour. The pledges will be followed up with an email to offer help and advice on using the collection service.”

The ‘giant’ caddy tour comes days after the Labour Party announced it would introduce a landfill ban on food waste if it were to come into power in 2015.

Read more about food waste and Waste Awareness Wales.