Tooting: New food waste trial starts next week that could change future of collections

A new pilot scheme will get underway on November 11 which could help determine the future of waste collections in the borough.

Around 2,300 people from Southfields have been invited to take part in the scheme.

Homes taking part in the experiment have been given kitchen food caddies and biodegradable caddy liners to store their food waste, as well as larger external food containers which will be collected weekly as part of their normal collection service.

As part of the trial, the separated food waste will instead be sent to an anaerobic digestic plant where micro-organisms will break it down to produce a biogas that is fed into the National Gas Grid, as well as a liquid fertiliser used to improve agricultural soils.

The results of the trial will help refuse and recycling managers assess the benefits of introducing a borough-wide scheme to collect food waste separately.

The council collects around 25,000 tonnes of food waste mixed with other rubbish every year.

The council's director of environment and community services Paul Chadwick said: "The council has a target to reduce its carbon emissions and become a carbon-neutral organisation by 2030 and zero-carbon by 2050.

"This means examining and evaluating everything we do to see what changes we need to make to achieve these targets.

"We are proceeding with a limited pilot scheme to begin with to see how well it works. We know from other areas that have introduced similar initiatives that there are barriers to achieving high levels of participation and we want to get a better understanding of these.

"Lessons already learned in other boroughs are that although these schemes can work well initially, the amount collected tends to tail off quite significantly over time. Given the high cost of investment to bring this forward, it is important that we study the results of the pilot and work out what works best for our residents.

"The council's main focus remains to actively encourage residents to reduce all forms of waste, including food, which is by far the best environmental outcome. Minimising the amount of waste material that needs to be collected and processed is a key element of our carbon reduction programme."

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