West Berkshire Council Food Waste Collections Off to an Encouraging Start!

In the first six weeks of the service starting (31 October 2022), we have collected nearly 480 tonnes of food waste from households; that's the same weight as three adult blue whales. This food waste is processed at our composting facility in Padworth, where it is turned into a soil conditioner used by local landowners and landscapers.

Over 414,000 food waste collections took place over this initial six week period, with more than 99% of collections completed successfully on their scheduled collection day. This is an excellent achievement and the weekly number of missed collections have been falling week-on-week as the crews get familiar with their collection rounds. We are thankful to all the collection staff who are working very hard to collect rubbish and recycling from our residents all year round, particularly during the recent freezing cold weather.

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

"We are pleased with how well the new food waste service has started. We continue to see that residents are making good use of this service, and are especially encouraged to see that people in flats and communal buildings are presenting their waste with minimal contamination.

"We look forward to continuing to work with the community to improve on the District's already strong recycling performance over the coming months and years."

With Christmas coming up, we expect to see an increase in food waste. There are lots of tips on how to reduce food waste at: www.lovefoodhatewaste.com but for any unavoidable food waste such as tea bags, vegetables, plate scrapings, and fruit peelings, please continue to recycle using the weekly food waste collection. No amount is too small!