NEWS : Post

Sefton

Following the success of its food waste collection scheme, Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council has chosen Straight's market-leading 23 litre Kerbside Caddy as its container of choice. The Council recently purchased more than 5,000 of the 23 litre Kerbside Caddy along with the Straight 5 litre Kitchen Caddy to replace some existing containers and to further develop the scheme.

Clare Melser, Recycling Contract Monitoring Officer for Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council said, "The Kerbside Caddy is a robust product and has good manual handling features for the collection crews. Our crews find the container to be strong and easy to handle and empty, making collections much easier. The fact that the product is manufactured in the UK is also a bonus as it reduces both the environmental impact of the product and freight costs associated with delivery."

The weekly food waste collection was originally launched in June 2007 to coincide with the introduction of alternate weekly collections for residual waste. Although the food waste scheme is optional it has been extremely well received by residents with Sefton currently collecting approximately 150 tonnes of food waste each month. Collected food waste is taken to an in vessel composting plant near Preston where it is treated and then marketed for agricultural and horticultural uses.

The Council says that the new service has made a substantial difference to participation and recycling rates. Clare Melser continues, "Food waste makes up a large percentage of all waste, which makes it a priority material for Sefton to remove from the residual waste stream. Prior to the change in service, Sefton had a recycling rate of 24%. This rapidly rose to 30% within the first six months of the new alternating weekly system being implemented. At the half year 2008/09 Sefton was recycling 39.5% of all waste produced. These figures alone demonstrate the value of this type of scheme and shows that food waste collections can make a significant contribution to the acceptance of alternate weekly collection systems and recycling rates."

To date, over 25,000 households have opted to participate in the food waste collection scheme. The Council works closely with WRAP to continuously promote its wide range of recycling services and communicate the benefits of the food waste collection through the use of a variety of marketing tools, including a bi-annual resident newsletter. The scheme is open to all 123,000 households in the borough, which means that there is scope to further expand the scheme in the future.