Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Scottish Councils to Trial Food Waste Collection Schemes

We thought that all AD and Biogas fans would be interested in this item as successful food waste collection would be likely to lead to enhanced implemetation of biogas schemes. The following is from Let's Recycle! News:-

The first of Remade Scotland's food waste trials will begin collections on 25 February, after being delayed last year by the change in Scottish government.

Remade Scotland are managing seven food waste collection trials, lasting one year, following in the footsteps of the Waste & Resources Action Programme's food waste trials in England and Wales (see letsrecycle.com story).

The aim of the trials is to promote better understanding of the effectiveness and economics of different food waste collection systems.

Four of the Scottish trials will focus on collecting food waste only (in Aberdeenshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, Inverclyde) and three of the trials (in Falkirk, North Lanarkshire and Perth and Kinross) will add to existing infrastructure, collecting food waste with the garden waste.

Aberdeenshire: While the majority of the participating councils are due to start trials in March and April, Aberdeenshire will begin its trials in February with 5,000 households in Aberchirder, Banff, Macduff, Whitehills involved in the weekly collections.

All residents will receive a 20 litre bin in addition to a five litre kitchen caddy. Residents will also be provided with a free supply of compostable liners, manufactured by Biobag which come in rolls of six.

The waste will be collected in 7.5 tonne capacity trucks manufactured by Farid and taken to Gray's in-vessel composting facility where it will be composted and used as agricultural fertiliser in the local area.

In preparation for the trials in Aberdeenshire, surveyed 450 households to get an insight into the attitude towards to the forthcoming trials.

David Gunn, assistant campaign manager at Scottish Waste Awareness Group said: "For each of the participating councils, we will do pre-trial and post trial surveys and when all the trials are rolled out we will be collate and analyse the information and submit it to the Scottish Government. We hope to have the report from the pre-trial surveys collaged by the Summer."

All data from the Scottish trials will feed into the data for the UK-wide trials.

Two of the participating local authorities will send their waste to TEG Environmental Plc and four will send their waste to Scottish water's Deerdykes Composting and Organics Recycling Facility - pending award of Pollution Prevention Control Permit being issued by SEPA. 

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