Welcome to the world of food caddies
THE brave new world of how to get rid of your waste moved a step closer this week with the first promotion of two caddies that will be at the heart of the rubbish revolution.
In August, Stratford district moves to something that sounds like a classic TV comedy panel show – 3-2-1 with Ted Rogers and Dusty Bin – but is a state-of-the-art approach with a whole load of bins, known as the 123+ waste collection service.
It is part of a new South Warwickshire deal with Warwick district and the two green caddies will allow for the launch of a weekly food waste collection service.
They will be delivered from April, together with a booklet aimed at heading off any confusion about which bins go out when.
But when the council made mention of the dynamic duo this week – a small 7 litre caddy for indoors and a 23 litre external bin, there was a big reaction and plenty of confusion.
At present, food waste can be put in the garden waste bin as part of the subscription service but though that is about to go up in price next month, food waste will be banned from that bin and taken to a different recycling place from 1st August.
Under the new regime, the small caddy is designed to be kept in the kitchen and accumulated leftovers can then be transferred to its big brother outside for collection, three-and-a-bit times a week, seemingly.
The outdoors bin has a lockable lid to contain any smells and stop vermin getting in – and the council believes weekly collections will also stop the smells in their tracks.
Climate change portfolio holder Cllr Ian Shenton said: “The new food waste recycling service will make it easy for people to recycle their food waste every week. This will help remove any smelly waste from refuse bins and leave more space for other rubbish.
“It will also help people realise how much food they waste each week and hopefully act as a prompt to reduce avoidable food waste, such as making the most of leftovers, planning meals and creating shopping lists and storing food correctly.
“From August, we will no longer be collecting food and garden waste together – each will be collected separately. It is much cheaper to compost garden waste if it is separated from cooked and raw food waste. Food waste has to be treated at much higher temperatures to kill any pathogens that could spread infections on farms.
“I know this is a change from the current service, but I am sure that residents will adapt to this variation of the new service, whilst still maintaining a weekly food waste collection service.
“Recycling as much as possible will help reduce waste, protect the environment and help us tackle climate change. We can put your waste materials to good use, and we have a legal requirement to recycle as much household waste as we reasonably can. It costs money to collect and dispose of the waste in your grey bin. Recycling all that you can helps to keep council tax down.”
To avoid any possibility of confusion, the new service from 1st August will look like this:
1. A new food waste collection every week, using the two caddies about to be delivered
2. A new recycling collection, every two weeks using the existing wheeled bin for paper, card, food and drink cans, glass bottles and jars, aerosols, food and drink cartons, plastic bottles, plastic pots, tubs and trays.
3. The refuse bin collection is changing from every two weeks to every three weeks.
Garden waste collection service every two weeks, if you pay the revised annual rate of £42.
