Six months on, are weekly food waste collections a success?

It has been six months since many households started getting weekly food waste collections for the first time, with other areas seeing their collections increased from fortnightly to weekly.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC), which has moved to weekly collections, said the project had been "as successful as we expected it to be", with 9,000 households requesting starter packs - many of whom hadn't recycled food before.

Local authorities in Lincolnshire, meanwhile, said the scheme had had a positive start there, too.

The service was introduced as part of the government's Simpler Recycling initiative.

Nick Sison, a refuse driver for ERYC, said on the busiest days his team collected up to 1,800 food waste bins.

With the bins being emptied weekly instead of fortnightly, it has made the job of the collection teams easier.

"They're not as heavy, [and] we've been able to use that to our advantage because we've been able to fit a lot more streets into one day," Sison said.

Sarah Atkinson is the service manager for waste treatment and disposal at ERYC.

"We knew that [people] were already really good at recycling the food waste in the fortnightly service, but what we've found is that it has definitely encouraged more people to do it," she said.

"We've had 9,000 people request food waste starter packs from us. A lot of those are people that have never recycled food before, or they've moved into a house, they've not had a caddy [before] and not known what to do.

"Those people are new to recycling the food waste, and hopefully, it's the weekly collections that really provided that push."

A study by the council in April found that 20% of all rubbish going into general waste was food.

"What the data shows us is a lot of that is packaged food... We're definitely trying to do a bit of a communications campaign going forward," Atkinson said.

"Anything in the general bin gets sent off to be disposed of – it gets burned. But if food waste is recycled, it is made into compost and given out to homes and farms, and it is good for the environment."

Two thirds of the area covered by ERYC now has weekly food waste collections, with the remaining parts of the area due to move to weekly collections next February.

Elsewhere, since the end of March, households across Hull have been receiving weekly food waste collections.

In Lincolnshire, four districts - North Kesteven, West Lindsey, Lincoln and South Kesteven - now have food waste collections for the first time, and they will soon be rolled out across the rest of the county.

A spokesperson for Lincolnshire County Council said: "Weekly food waste collections have made a positive start across the first four areas of [the county] to introduce the service, with residents adapting well to the change and participation continuing to build.

"Available data indicates that around one in two households are presenting their food waste caddy for collection each week across the first four areas, with participation reaching around seven in 10 households in some parts of the county."

Hedon, like other places in East Yorkshire, now has weekly food waste collections.

Debbie Agius uses her kitchen food caddy every day and puts her wheelie bin out every week to be emptied.

She said her bin was usually at least half-full, and added: "I think, especially with the hot weather that we're getting, if you're leaving it in the bin for two weeks it gets smelly and can go off, so I do think that weekly waste is good."

Lee Egerton has also welcomed the weekly collections over the summer because he used to find maggots in his bin.

But he said: "I question whether they need to be emptied every week in the winter months because the food doesn't degrade so much."

Liz Harrison said she sometimes put food into her general waste bin.

"It depends on time and [if I'm] just not thinking," she said.

"If you go around the close... on a Thursday morning, when they come, there are hardly any brown bins out at all.

"There are loads of blue [bins], so we do recycle, and there's quite a few green [bins], but there are hardly any brown bins.

"I'd sooner have the blue bin [emptied] weekly rather than the brown bin."

Charles Quinn, cabinet member for environment at Hull City Council, said: "The launch of Simpler Recycling... has been a positive step forward for Hull. Since introducing weekly food and garden waste collections, we have seen a 16% increase in tonnage compared with the same period last year.

"The scheme is also delivering wider community benefits, with 31.25 tonnes of compost donated to allotments and local community groups since June this year alone."

He added: "While this is encouraging, there is still an opportunity for residents to recycle more food waste and ensure the right items are going into the right bins.

"Recycling food waste costs less than half as much as disposal in [general waste bins], saving money that can be invested in other council services."

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