Merton pilots food waste collection for flats

Merton Council is all set to carry out a year-long trial of food waste collections from flats in the borough.

Starting this week, 194 selected flats in Mitcham, Phipps Bridge and Wimbledon, will benefit from the new service. Thirty-two of the flats within the trial are also located in the council’s Low Carbon Zone.

In advance of the trial, the council has supplied each flat with a ventilated kitchen caddy.  Residents can place food waste such as vegetable peelings, cooked meat and tea bags into the caddy.  The council has also provided packs of compostable starch liners to make emptying the caddy as easy as possible.  New communal metal food waste banks will be located next to existing recycling bins, into which residents taking part in the trial can empty their caddies when full.  The council will empty the food waste banks every week, and the food waste will be taken to a special processing facility to be composted.

The council estimates that around 20% of the rubbish in an average household's bin is food waste.  This can be recycled into compost instead of sent to landfill, saving money on landfill tax and cutting down on green house gas emissions.

Merton Council cabinet member for environmental sustainability and regeneration Councillor Andrew Judge said: "We wanted to ensure residents living in flats also benefitted from the food waste collection service. Although a small trial, it will enable us to encourage people in flats to start to recycle their food waste and find out what is good about the service and where we need to make improvements.  Eventually we want to offer every household in Merton this service."

Check out Merton’s food waste collection video: www.merton.gov.uk/foodwaste