Plan to introduce new waste collection for Wirral's kitchen scraps
WIRRAL families could soon be asked to separate their kitchen scraps from other rubbish under a new scheme to be considered by the council.At a full meeting of Wirral Council next Monday. Liberal Democrats will press to launch a trial run of kitchen waste collection.
The scheme has been introduced in several other areas of the UK and requires householders to collect together items such as fruit and vegetable peelings, egg shells, used tea bags and coffee grounds, plate scrapings, cheese and meat or fish products in a bin provided by their local authority.
The idea was introduced in 2007 by David Miliband, then environment secretary, who unveiled it as part of the government’s waste strategy.
Homes taking part in trials elsewhere in the country were given a special kitchen bin for slops and bio-degradable binliners.
The full binliners were then placed in a box left out with the normal rubbish collection.
The bins - usually described as "caddies" by supporters and "slop buckets" by critics - are designed for all food waste.
Councils either convert the slops into compost, or send them to anaerobic digesters - sealed tanks where food rots, producing methane which can be burned to produce electricity.
Liberal Democrat cabinet member for environment Cllr Gill Gardiner, who will put a notice of motion to the council calling for a trial run to begin, said: “Kitchen waste makes up approximately 18% of our household waste stream.
"It has been estimated that the introduction of a kerbside collection of food waste across Wirral would divert between 6,500 and 9,500 tonnes of waste from landfill, increasing our recycling performance by around 7%.”
Wirral’s recycling rates have soared from 14% in the last three years, peaking at 43% last summer largely due to garden waste collections.
And Wirral was named "the most improved metropolitan borough for recycling" in 2007/08.
Councillor Gardiner added: “We can’t afford to be complacent about our recycling success.
"With landfill taxes rising, further improvements to recycling will save Wirral council taxpayers money, reduce the need for unsightly landfill sites as well as mitigate our impact on climate change."
The treatment of kerbside-collected food waste is being considered by Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority.
The notice of motion asks that a study be carried out to decide the most effective methods for households to safely separate kitchen waste and for its efficient kerbside collection. The findings of the trial would be reported to a scrutiny committee in January.
THE GLOBE
