Food Waste Collection A Step Nearer
At its meeting earlier today, Mid Beds’ Executive re-asserted its commitment to the district wide roll out of food waste collection. The finances required for this scheme will be subject to approval as part of the capital and revenue budgets for 2008/09.
Running a district wide kitchen waste collection service will add £640,000 to our waste collection bill for 2008/09. In addition, a one-off capital sum of £900,000 is required to pay for one off costs such as collection vehicles, kitchen caddies etc.
Today’s Executive decision follows the unequivocal success of the current food waste trial in the district, which has been in operation since April. In its first eight months of operation the trial has seen an excellent participation rate of between 70% and 80% by the 6300 households in the trial areas.
On average, 1.75kg of food waste is collected from each participating household per week. With a district wide collection of food waste, it is anticipated that around 5000 tonnes pa of food waste will be collected in the district .
Food waste collected in Mid Beds is taken to Biogen at Milton Ernest and is made into bio-fertiliser through a process called anaerobic digestion. As a by-product of this process, electricity is produced and fed into the national grid.
Cllr Budge Wells, Portfolio Holder for Environmental Services at Mid Beds said: “Research has shown that food waste makes up around 17.5% of people’s total residual black bin waste. By diverting this waste away from landfill and recycling it for use on crops, this is an effective way to reduce the damage to the environment caused by methane emitting from landfill sites and provide a popular service for Mid Beds residents.”
