A number of local councils have apparently been trialling separate food waste collections and these are being heralded as a success.
According to the BBC’s website the 19 councils had around a 70% uptake of the scheme which diverted over 4000 tonnes of food waste from landfill (although they don’t say where to).
I recently filled in a questionnaire on the local council’s website which included a question about food waste collection. I have mixed feelings about this, I already have a wormery which takes care of my food waste, so do not want another bin for this. The council used to take some food waste (vegetable peelings and teabags in the main) in the compost bins, but they stopped this shortly after bringing in the bins for the compostable waste. More than anything though, we have dramatically reduced our food waste by only buying what we are likely to eat (and have therefore reduced our weekly bills by about one third over the last 5 years) so don’t have much waste.
Maybe, by seeing how much food they are wasting, then some people will reduce the amount they throw away. According to WRAP 6.7 million tonnes, or, more topically at the moment, £10 billion of food are thrown away in the UK each year. However, if people’s wallets are not reducing this food wastage, I am not sure that being confronted by the waste will have the desired effect. What do you think?