Food waste promotion prompts record breaking month
The amount of food waste recycled in Eastleigh Borough was a record breaking 189 tonnes collected for July – 30% more than collected the same month last year.
Borough residents increased the amount of food waste they recycled by nearly 40 tonnes in July, following a borough wide promotional campaign by Eastleigh Borough Council to encourage residents to recycle more food waste. The Council is the only one in Hampshire to collect food waste – it’s collected every week in brown bins.
The food waste is taken by Veolia to a special processing plant. Here it is turned into a biogas through a process called anaerobic digestion. The gas is then used to generate electricity for the national grid, where it powers all our homes and appliances.
The increase in tonnage collected last month will generate enough clean electricity to:
- power your fridge for 84 years;
- boil a kettle for an extra two million cups of tea; or
- power 45,150 more showers!
Councillor Rupert Kyrle, Cabinet Lead for the Environment, said: “Our residents deserve a huge ‘well done’ for embracing food waste recycling so enthusiastically. Every piece of food waste we recycle instead of throwing way in our household waste bins gets a ‘second life’ as a clean energy source. It is much more efficient and cheaper to use our food waste recycling rather than placing it in the black bin - that is far more expensive and goes to incineration.
He added, “Schemes such as this will be vital if we are to tackle the climate change emergency and we can all do our bit by recycling our food waste.”
Since the start of July, over 2000 new food waste bins have now been delivered to residents wanting to turn their food waste into clean energy.
The increased demand came after a promotional campaign during which households received a free roll of compostable liners to put in their food waste kitchen caddies, alongside an informational leaflet. This initiative was funded by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) a national charity to help reduce waste, develop sustainable products and use resources in an efficient way.