New food waste collection for Rushmoor given final approval
The weekly service starts in the Autumn
It has been confirmed that weekly food waste collections will start in Aldershot and Farnborough later this year.
Rushmoor Borough Council's Cabinet has approved the new recycling service - as part of the council's pledge to tackle climate change.
The collections - from food caddies - will make it easier for residents to recycle more - and cut waste and carbon emissions.
The service will be introduced for most homes in the Autumn, and for households with shared bins, from Spring 2022, ahead of the government's 2023 target for all councils to have food waste collections.
The Cabinet heard that by weight, food waste makes up around 40% of the contents of green bins in Rushmoor.
A further 27% is made up of items that residents can already recycle through the council's recycling schemes.
Alongside the food waste collection service, residents will still get their fortnightly blue bin and glass recycling collections, fortnightly garden waste recycling for those that subscribe, and collection of their small electrical items and batteries for recycling.
With food waste being collected in separate caddies, the council will also move to fortnightly collections of the remaining non-recyclable contents of the green rubbish bins. The council said this is now normal practice, with around 85% of councils no longer providing a weekly collection service for non-recyclable rubbish.
At the moment, around one-third of households have smaller 140-litre green rubbish bins - as part of the changes they will be able to swap these for a larger 240-litre bin, if needed when the new service comes in.
Councillor Maurice Sheehan, Rushmoor Borough Council's Cabinet member for Operational Services, said: "Residents have told us so often that they want to be able to recycle more, and weekly food waste recycling is something we can all do that's simple - and makes a real difference to the planet.
"At the same time, we are also in discussions with Hampshire County Council about increasing the range of recycling we can collect as part of our blue bin recycling, so this is just the start."
Under the new scheme, residents will get a kitchen caddy and a lockable outdoor caddy to store their food securely, along with information on the new service, tips on how to get the best out of food waste recycling and a roll of liners to get them started.
The food waste will be recycled to create renewable energy in the form of biogas, and soil fertiliser.
Councillor Sheehan added: "Currently, our household recycling rate is around 30%, which is now far behind many other areas and the forthcoming national target of 65% by 2035. Introducing weekly food waste collections and the other changes will increase household recycling to about 45%, reduce waste and importantly, cut our carbon emissions. Overall, we estimate that these changes will reduce our emissions by 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year - roughly the same as taking 1,000 average cars off the road - so it is the right thing to do for our families and for future generations."