Food waste collection vehicles named in West Berkshire

West Berkshire Council have released the winning names of their new food waste vehicles ahead of the launch of their new separate weekly food waste collection service on 31 October 2022.

Over 100 entries were received from local primary school children through a competition held in September.

The winning names are:

The Hungry Recycler

Composter Clemmie

Sir Andy Curry

Betty Banana

Food Feaster 2.0

Garbage Gobbler

Pikachew

Eva Egg Shell

The competition was part of a campaign to help launch the new separate weekly food waste service which is starting on 31 October for kerbside collections and on 28 November for residents who have shared bins kept in a communal bin store area.

Cllr Steve Ardagh-Walter, Executive Member for Environment and Waste at West Berkshire Council, said:

“It’s great to have had the help of primary school children across West Berkshire in naming our new food waste vehicles.

“We had some brilliant names submitted and it was hard to choose the winners but more importantly, this competition has helped raise awareness about the importance of food waste recycling amongst younger people.

“We are looking forward to the new service starting on 31 October and making food waste recycling easier and available to all residents.”

Sara Perry, General Manager for Veolia West Berkshire said:

“A huge well done to all of the schools that entered! We are thrilled that our new vehicles, which will do a huge job each week of saving residents food waste from going into the general waste bin, will now have names that residents can look out for when they are on their rounds.

“Most importantly, the competition has helped raise awareness about the importance of food waste recycling amongst our younger generation who will hopefully get more involved with the scheme going forward."

The council say analysis has shown that on average over 25% of the current black bins for general waste are made up of food waste. Therefore they're making changes to the way food waste is collected so that it is collected weekly from a smaller, more secure container to encourage more people to recycle food waste in West Berkshire.

Separate food waste collections will take place weekly on the same day as black bin and recycling collections and residents will be able to recycle the same types of food waste as current food waste collection service.

For more information on the new service please visit: www.westberks.gov.uk/foodwaste.