Bucks residents achieve impressive increase in food waste recycling

On average, that’s an extra 2.9kgs of food waste from every household in the county.

The waste campaign is run by the Waste Partnership in Buckinghamshire, which is made up of the four district councils which collect household waste and Buckinghamshire County Council which disposes of it.

By using advertising, social media, and direct contact with residents, it has aimed to get people who already recycle food waste to do it more, and to get other residents to start for the first time.

Councillor Bill Chapple OBE, Buckinghamshire County Coucil Cabinet Member for Planning and Environment and chairman of the WPB said: ‘This is another good step forward in our efforts to be more waste efficient and residents can give themselves a pat on the back, though there is always room to do more. The ideal is not to waste food, but some waste is unavoidable and by recycling we can still get energy from that food – electrical energy’.

From the beginning of June 2018, residents of Aylesbury Vale have been able to use plastic bags to line their food waste caddies, which will hopefully continue to increase the amounts of food waste recycling.

A ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ section on the Recycle for Buckinghamshire website (www.recycle4bucks.co.uk) gives tips on making the most of leftovers and reducing waste. By recycling as much as possible through the weekly kerbside collections carried out by the districts, the waste can be turned into energy by a process of anaerobic digestion.

In Bucks, around 16,000 tonnes of food waste are collected from homes each year, but there is still more to be done to reduce food waste and to recycle unavoidable waste.