The council still wants to “strongly encourage households” to recycle food waste but it believes it is not necessary to use caddy liners as recycling food waste into the caddy and brown bin without a liner is more environmentally friendly.
This is also a cost saving measure as liners cost public funds around £170,000 a year and this measure is believed to help “safeguard limited public funds to protect frontline services”.
Tameside council executive member responsible for environmental services Cllr Denise Ward said: “The collection of food waste is a well-established practice across households in Tameside now and, while the provision of free caddy liners initially helped to encourage people to change their habits and recycle their food waste, it is not absolutely essential to enable residents to continue recycling.
“Compostable caddy liners are easily available for people to buy along with their other bin bags but even compostable items do add to unnecessary waste so the greener option – and our preference – is for people to simply put their food waste directly into their caddies and brown bins without using liners, as many people already do.”
For those who wish to use them, caddy bin liners will still be available in the local supermarket for purchase.
Liners
The issue of caddy liners and their benefits has been a long-standing debate in the sector with many being opposed to removing them as research published by resources charity WRAP suggested that participation would be “significantly affected” if supplies of free liners were removed and residents were then required to purchase liners from retail outlets.
It also noted that “households without an ongoing or adequate liner supply tended to stop participating with subsequent difficulties in re-recruiting these households onto the scheme later”.
The government also supports the use of liners and set out by Defra its guidelines surrounding them in its consultation on consistent collections in England, though nothing was mandated.
The department said: “We continue to promote the use of caddy liners by householders in England and will consider guidance recommending that these should be provided as part of the service.”
However, many consider them costly and say removing them has little-to-no effect on recycling numbers, while reducing waste as well.
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