Borough embraces food waste recycling
Over a thousand new participants this month
Hampshire’s only food waste recycling scheme has already attracted over a thousand new participants since the start of a Council campaign at the beginning of this month.
Residents across Eastleigh Borough are signing up for the authority’s weekly food waste collection service, where table scraps and peelings are converted into clean energy.
The special brown caddies for collecting all kinds of food waste - including meat, dairy, fish, fruit and vegetables - are currently being delivered and, as an additional incentive to get residents started, the Council is providing free, compostable caddy liners, together with information leaflets and stickers, to make recycling easier.
The waste collected from Eastleigh households is taken to a special processing plant in Bournemouth where it is turned into a biogas through a process called anaerobic digestion. The gas is used to generate electricity for the national grid: 1,917 tonnes of Eastleigh food waste generated enough energy to power 185 homes last year.
Even small amounts can make a difference: recycling just one tea bag a day for a month can produce sufficient energy to make another five cups, while a single caddy full of food waste can generate the electricity needed to toast eight slices of bread. The process also creates a bio-fertiliser – and also means that less food ends up in landfill.
Councillor Rupert Kyrle, Eastleigh Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, said:
“Our food waste bin rollout is going really well and we’ve had very positive feedback from residents. Over a thousand bins have already been ordered and it looks as if the people of Eastleigh Borough are keen to embrace this scheme, the only one of its type in Hampshire.
“We’re very pleased at the way our residents have responded to the message that recycling even a small amount of food waste will produce clean energy to power our homes and businesses.”
To find out more, please visit www.eastleigh.gov.uk/foodwaste.