A trial of food waste collections at more than 3,000 homes in Nottingham has so far been met with support from residents, the city council says.
The Labour-run council says up to 37 per cent of household rubbish placed in bins is food waste.
All local authorities will be required to collect food waste from homes separately by April 2025 under Government law, and so the council is testing how best it can achieve this.
The trial covers 3,426 homes and the first collections took place on Friday, March 3.
It comes as part of the council’s new waste strategy, which sets out how waste will be collected to improve recycling rates as it aims to become carbon neutral by 2028.
During an Executive Board meeting on March 21, Cllr Sally Longford (Lab), the portfolio holder for environment, said: “As part of the preparation for the introduction of [the waste strategy], some people will know we have already started a pilot project of collecting waste food in part of Berridge ward, and so far feedback as been very positive.”
However the exact nature of the feedback was not made clear.
Residents across Nottingham were consulted back in December last year on the council’s plans.
The authority says it needs a new strategy due to Government targets to increase the amount of waste recycled in England to 65 per cent, while keeping waste that ends up in landfill below 10 per cent.
The city’s recycling rate in 2019 was 27 per cent, however by October 2022 it had fallen to 23.9 per cent.
In the consultation residents were asked to choose between two different methods of future waste collection: ‘twin-stream’ and ‘multi-stream’.
More than 3,600 people responded, surpassing the responses to the consultation over the future of the Broadmarsh Centre, and the results came back almost 50/50.
Twin-stream will mean residents will get a container for food waste, collected every week, as well as a container for paper and card and a bin for their remaining recycling including glass, plastic and cartons.
These will be collected fortnightly.
Multi-stream will mean residents will get multiple containers for food waste, paper and card, as well as separate containers for each recycling material such as glass and plastic.
Bins would be collected weekly by a specialised bin lorry.
However general waste bin sizes would be reduced as a result.
All alternative options will result in increased collection costs relative to the current service, ranging from £2.36 million to £2.73 million.
Cllr Longford added: “The consultation was very successful, with a very high number of responses.
“However there were issues with the ability of us to make contact and consult with our more diverse communities, so the respondents tended to be older and very few young people responded.
“Part of the plan was to extend consultation as we roll out the adoption of the plan gradually. We will consult with citizens as we go to make sure we have the full range of voices.
“There were particular themes that were raised as issues during consultation.
“One of them was a public health issue like vermin, another was about availability of things like access to household waste recycling centre at Lenton.”
As a result of the consultation three new targets have been added, and relate to vermin, access to household waste recycling facilities and reducing flytipping and litter.
The results, alongside further engagement with residents, will now inform what method will be adopted and how it will be implemented.
