Food waste collections for all in Wandsworth Post Reply

[Community Editor]

This year residents across the whole borough will benefit from additional food waste collection services, as part of our Cleaner Borough Plan.

Food waste collections will be rolled out in two phases. All households with enough space at the front of their property for a food waste caddy, for example a front garden or driveway, will receive the service in June.

All households with enough space at the front of their property for a food waste caddy, e.g. a front garden or driveway, will receive the service in June.

Residents will get their food waste caddies delivered between 8 April and 7 June. Collections will start from the week beginning 10 June, on collection day.

Flats will get the service later in the year.

Read more about food waste collections

Councillor Gasser, Cabinet Member for Environment, outlines the plans: “We are writing to all 80,000 households that are eligible for food waste collections, during March, to share the details of the new service.

“We are also increasing investment in our recycling services whilst we guarantee your weekly rubbish collections.

“Small electrical collections will also start in the summer for most households, and residents in flats will be able to make use of new, recycling collection points across the borough which are being installed throughout March.

“We are replacing our fleet of rubbish and recycling trucks with new ones that will run on a bio-fuel, known as hydrotreated vegetable oil, that will lead to a 90 per cent reduction in carbon emissions.

“We are also working hard to improve rubbish and recycling services on housing estates.

“These are just some of the many improvements we are making, so it’s easier for you to do the right thing with your rubbish and recycling.”

[Powder Pink]

I appreciate that we need to move forward with measures to help the environment, but for the here and now, will Wandsworth undertake to deal with the fox problem before they deposit a food caddy to each front drive? I can't imagine anything worse to aggravate this insane fox problem along. Is it mandatory to use the food caddy?

[BenandJerry]

I would be keen to know if this is mandatory as well. No desire to keep a food bin on my doorstep as bait for foxes. Can anyone clarify? Thanks.

[Fantastic Mrs Fox]

Hi,
We have had food waste bins in Lambeth for a while. They are lockable so if used properly foxes cannot open them. We never had a problem despite having foxes living quite close.
We normally keep a kitchen caddy in our kitchen (as you would guess from the name :-) and the larger, kerbside bin in our back garden.
It doesn't cause any more smell than putting the same waste in the black bins, and it's more fox-proof.

[muddyboots]

As long as we don’t end up like Lambeth with an ugly collection of different bins.

I wonder how big it is.

[readysteadycook]

This is so not wanted by the majority and another outrageous waste of taxpayers money by the new Labour council.

(My new bin will to straight to the tip)

Look at the cost from a Freedom of Information request (and it’s not just a one off cost) :-

The set up cost of this scheme is £3.8m

The annual cost of ongoing service provision is anticipated to be £1.189 million.

[ABC1]

Where the hell am I supposed to put a kitchen caddy? Not surprisingly my kitchen was designed without a caddy in mind and there’s no space for one anywhere. I’m not going to have a box of rotting food on my counter top (plus it would take up too much room.) Presumably this was the idea of a bunch of people who take no pride in what their home looks like.

[Climateaware]

Surprised by the negativity here.

Food waste collection is one of the most straightforward & cost effective things we can do to lower carbon footprint from households - it really is low hanging fruit.

Of course the bin & system needs to be decently fox-proof and given Wandsworth is one of the last councils to bring this in, I hope they will have researched the choice of containers properly.

Did all you guys gripe when other forms of recycling where introduced?
Do you currently recycle at home?

Readysteadycook where is your evidence that this is not wanted by the majority please?
I have previously written more than once to the council asking them to bring this in.
Also £1.18m running cost for 80,000 households works out as about £15 per household year - that looks like pretty good value to me.

This is progress, yes there may be some teething problems, but let's hope these are resolvable
Climate change is very real, anyone who says otherwise is a not a person to be taken seriously, your grandkids need you to process your food waste please.

[delsh]

@Climateaware I’m with you! I can’t believe the reaction to this! We’ve had food waste bins in Lambeth for years and they cause no issue at all. Foxes cannot get into them as the locking mechanism is very secure.

We bought a food caddy from John Lewis made by Joseph Joseph that you can stick to the inside of a kitchen cabinet door - we have ours on the inside of the cupboard under our sink. You line it with biodegradable food caddy liners and then just put the filled up bags in the outside bin. There’s never been any smell, or mess from either of them.

[readysteadycook]

The climate always changes, up and down. But if you have just accepted the narrative, you may want to do some research on the climate scam - don’t blindly accept all these policies on Climate.

Question them - start with a Twitter search on #climatescam and see what you find.

The control of people (LTN’s, 15 minute cities, reducing meat) and the significant costs that are being added to our outgoings, are all staggering. For example, did you know our utilities bill has 8-12% added for Green subsidies.

To put a smelly bucket in my kitchen is not going to ever happen. To spend significant £millions of our money on this scheme is just outrageous.

[SWtastic]

I don't want a food waste bin as I have an insinkerator which grinds up all food waste, including most bones (and we eat a decreasing amount of meat) and it goes into the drains.  As Council tax payers, we would be better off if each household had an insinkerator installed, as they fit easily under a sink.  This would save on pollution from the vehicles collecting the waste, and the manpower to do it.
The Wandsworth bins are NOT fox proof - on a Thursday morning on my way to work I see loads of the (trial) bin contents scattered.  One ingenious local has a piece of wood on a string which they wedge between the handle and the bin lid but even that failed last week.

[HannahShakespeare]

I live in Lambeth and LOVE the food waste collection service - it always amazes me when I visit my friends in Wandsworth how big/heavy their normal rubbish bags are. It's a great feeling to know that your food waste will become soil improver rather than being incinerated or ending up in landfill. The caddies are small and neat and really don't smell unless you put fish skin etc. in them (in which case you just need to empty it to the outside one). We also haven't had fox problems with them as the lock is pretty effective.

[Climateaware]

Readysteadycook I asked you for evidence for your assertion that the majority of people are against food waste collections, but you haven't provided any at all.

And yes sadly we are ALL gonna have to pay significant amounts of money one way or another to sort out the damage we have done and stop things getting much much worse. We can choose to be proactive about it in a way that builds the economy or we are all starting to pay it any way through our food, insurance bills, etc, and that’s just the start.

There is no credible science in opposition to manmade climate change - 99%+of scientists concur - so you ‘may want do your own research’ into who actually funds all that climate scepticism misinformation that you regard as ‘research’

Most people wouldn’t dream of telling a structural engineer that the steel she’s specified for your house or a bridge under construction is wrong, but when it comes to climate change science everyone suddenly everyone feels they are entitled to their opinion. How disappointing. I bet back in Newton’s day there were folk arguing that an apples used to fall upwards too.

[chorister]

Readysteadycook - let me help you, at least over the climate “scam”. Radiant energy arrives from the sun at short (visible and ultraviolet) wavelengths. About 30% of the incoming energy is radiated / reflected back to space from ice sheets, deserts, concrete buildings etc at long (infrared) wavelengths. It was first demonstrated in 1859, and can easily be demonstrated in any competent lab, that Greenhouse Gases are less transparent to long than to short wavelengths. It follows therefore, just as night follows day, that if GHG concentrations rise less energy will escape back to space. More energy retained in any closed system will heat it, so the atmosphere will heat as GHG concentrations rise. And a heating atmosphere will change the climate.

Sorry for confusing you with the facts.

[dimelda]

To all you Neanderthals living in Wandsworth.   So you're finally getting food waste bins, which we've had in Lambeth for years.  They're both hygienic and fox-proof, & quite rightly will be mandatory.  If you choose to chuck them away, remember they're not your property - they're the property of Wandsworth, which you'll be asked to replace at your expense.  Honestly, the childish whingeing on this thread is beyond belief.  And to ABC1, whose '... kitchen was designed without a caddy in mind'... Poor you.  You'll just have to have another kitchen designed won't you.  If only you knew just how ludicrous you all sound.