Cannock Chase District Council has removed food waste collection from its recycling system, instead asking residents to include it with residual waste.

From 1 February, food waste will no longer be collected in brown bins, for organic and garden waste, but will instead be disposed of in general residual waste bins, which will be sent for incineration in Staffordshire.

The money-saving move has been introduced by the council, which claims that food makes up only a small percentage of waste collected in the brown bins that currently take mixed food and garden waste.

Residents are encouraged to compost their own waste at home, which the council sees as the most sustainable form of food waste disposal, and can even request a free composter unit from the council.

The new system will be introduced from 1 February prior to start of new waste management contracts in April.

Operation change to ‘save money on disposal’

The decisions have been made based on a report submitted to the council by the Deputy Managing Director, which has been deemed ‘not for publication’ by the council.

Minutes of the 12 November 2015 council meeting following submission, however, reported that the preferred option would result in the implementation of an all year round ‘garden waste only’ collection and a fortnightly residual waste collection that will now include food waste.

The reason for the change in operation was a desire to save money due to ‘severe budget pressures’ in 2016-2017. The council hopes that containing all collection streams in a single contract will provide a cheaper option to the current one that includes anaerobic digestion or in-vessel composting (IVC) methods for organic waste.

The council says that the removal of food waste from the organic waste bins will allow a cheaper method of composting; IVC is reportedly 40 per cent more expensive that windrow composting, which can be used to compost garden-only waste..

Windrow composting sees organic waste piled in long rows, which are turned regularly and aerated naturally, while IVC is a more complex, multi-stage method that relies on forced aeration .

Council meeting reports from Channock Chase indicates ‘a number of councils have recently taken food waste out of their garden and food waste to save money on disposal’.

The council has also earmarked an estimated £50,000 for campaigns to educate local residents on the new changes.

Biffa Municipal and Jack Moody ‘preferred contractors’

The proposed changes to the waste collection system were made following a bidding process on the contract. Bidders provided a quote for three different options: collection of green and food waste in a single bin; a year-round collection of garden waste; and a seasonal collection of garden waste.

The contract procurement procedure involved two separate tenders, one for the waste collection service and the other for the treatment of organic waste. Based on these quotes the removal of food waste from organic waste bins was deemed the most suitable option.

The minutes from the council meeting stated that Biffa Municipal Ltd and Jack Moody Ltd were the preferred contractors for waste collection and organic disposal respectively.

Waste ‘disposed of in the most efficient way’

Councillor Alan Dudson, Portfolio Leader for the Environment, said: “All waste from the district is now disposed of in the most efficient way. General ‘green bin’ waste is sent to a waste power plant in Staffordshire, where it is incinerated to create energy. Dry recycling from the blue bin is sent to a recycling facility and with this service change all waste from the brown bin can now be sent to an outdoor composting facility, not only saving tax payers’ money but also playing a part in helping the environment.

“It is important, however, that residents understand the consequences of putting the wrong item in the wrong bin, as a contaminated load could result in that load being rejected and being sent to landfill, which could cost up to £1,500.”

Food waste collections

The council documents show no indication that the council considered implementing separate food waste collections, which are now mandatory in Wales and Scotland.

Indeed, strong promotion of separate food waste collection has been credited with helping Wales improve its recycling performance so drastically in relation to England. The latest figures show that Wales’s household waste recycling rate for 2014/15 was 54.6 per cent, compared to 43.7 per cent in England.

Reflecting on Wales’s recent success for Resource, Gev Eduljee, External Affairs Director at the UK Waste & Recycling division of SUEZ wrote: ‘The mandatory separate collection of food waste helps reduce contamination levels in dry recyclates, whether separately collected or in co-mingled form. In turn, this reduces reject rates and increases the overall efficiency of recycling.

‘With these factors in mind, we recommend the introduction of mandatory separate food waste collections once a week across all local authorities and the collection of residual ‘black bag’ fortnightly. Taken together, these measures could add six per cent to individual local authority recycling rates.’

The council’s decision follows increasing concern over the issue of food waste, as well as a report for the EU that says separate collection of biowaste should be mandatory.

AD growth stall reflected in LA food waste collection

Responding to the council's suggestion that AD had become too expensive a treatment for its organic waste, Charlotte Morton, Chief Executive of the Anaerobic Digestion & Bioresources Association, said: “Growth has certainly slowed in the AD industry’s food waste sector as increased capacity has failed to be matched with additional feedstock; the result of stagnation in the number of food waste collection schemes in England. Our projections for 2015 show that the number of new food waste plants will be substantially lower than in 2014.

“With over 100 food waste plants already operating, generating enough vital baseload energy to power 211,000 homes, the industry is already supporting a number of councils to extract heavy food waste from their waste stream (with landfill costs averaging at £100 per tonne) with a falling average gate fee of under £30 per tonne.

“A lack of central government support and heavily restricted budgets are preventing English councils from implementing segregated food waste collections. Defra should harmonise food waste collection services in England and divert this valuable resource from the waste stream for AD, which extracts more value from inedible food than any alternative technology. If we treated all the UK’s inedible food waste through AD it would produce enough baseload electricity to power 750,000 homes, and the benefit from carbon abatement, meeting UK recycling targets and improved food production offers value to every UK household.”

The minutes of CCDC’s cabinet meeting to decide the changes can be found at the council’s website.