Collection of food waste to end

Food waste in the Lancaster district can no longer be collected and taken away for recycling.

Food waste in the Lancaster district can no longer be collected and taken away for recycling following a decision made by Lancashire County Council to change the way that garden waste is composted.

This means that residents who have been recycling food waste in their green bins along with their garden waste, or putting it out for collection in the specially provided caddy, should either put their food waste in their grey bins or compost it at home.

Therefore, the following containers which were delivered to households to help residents recycle food waste will no longer be needed and can either be re-used as storage for other household items, disposed of in your grey bin or orange sack or taken to local household waste recycling sites where they will be collected and recycled.

• Silver kitchen caddies
• Small green kerbside caddies (used by households with little or no garden waste)

Large green wheelie bins should be retained for the storage of garden waste only.

The change has been made because mixing food waste in with garden waste means it has to be sent to special indoor composting facilities, where the composting takes place at a controlled temperature. This is necessary to kill any bacteria in the food waste and control the potential spread of disease like foot and mouth.

With food waste accounting for only around 1% of the mixed food and green waste collected from households, there are more cost-effective options available to deal with green waste if the food waste is removed.

The indoor facilities are therefore closing and Lancashire County Council will save money by taking your garden waste to an outdoor composting facility.

County Councillor Clare Pritchard, Lancashire County Council lead member for waste, said: "The very severe financial situation facing the county council means we need to take advantage of more cost-effective ways to process some types of waste.

"Our current processing facilities were designed to prevent organic waste being landfilled, as landfill taxes at the time meant it would cost vastly more to continue landfilling organic waste - however, the government abolished the penalty for landfilling organics in 2013.

"At the same time, people are throwing far less food away, meaning the proportion of organics in our waste has greatly declined, leaving us with a process which is costly to process a relatively small proportion of organic waste.

"We will continue to compost green waste, but to allow us to do this it's vital that people no longer put their food waste in the same bin."

Last updated: 01 March 2016