Our food waste collections – one month in

Pendle residents involved in the new food waste collections have embraced a new way of getting rid of their leftover food.

Just over one month on from the start of the collections, Pendle Council is collecting around one and a half tonnes of food waste every day.

Richard Taylor, who works in the food waste collection crew, said:

"Our target was to collect one and a half tonnes a day.

"Some days we beat it - there have been days when we've collected well over two tonnes of food waste.

"This shows that there is a need for the service and that residents are keen to get rid of their food waste in an environmentally responsible way.

"Our food waste collections give them the opportunity to do just that."

7,000 households across Pendle began recycling their food waste in April.

Collections are weekly from some homes in Barnoldswick, Earby, Brierfield, Barrowford, Nelson and Colne.

The food waste is then taken to a site in Todmorden that specialises in indoor composting.

Here it is turned into high quality compost in a process that takes just four weeks - so the egg shells, bacon rind or broccoli stalks residents put out in the first week's food waste collections could already be nutrient rich compost!

Bryan Thompson, from the Council's Operational Services, said:

"Thank you to everyone who has started to use the new food waste recycling collections.

"The residents involved are clearly getting into a new habit and putting their leftover food straight into their caddies for recycling.

"This means food waste is no longer in the grey refuse bin and going to landfill, which is such good news for the environment.

"Pendle has to meet the target of recycling 56% of its waste by 2015.

"Recycling our food waste is definitely going to help us on our way to meeting that target."

For more information about the food waste collections in Pendle, visit www.pendle.gov.uk/foodwaste.