Project manager David Whitehouse told letsrecycle.com that the overall recycling rate for the county is projected to increase almost 2% in 2014/15 as a result of a Warwickshire Waste Partnership campaign to encourage food waste recycling.
Rolled out in February, the communications campaign was designed as part of the council’s ‘Grey to Green offensive’ to dissuade residents from throwing food waste into their residual waste bin (see letsrecycle.com story). The campaign combined an online e-marketing drive with leaflets and a competition asking residents how much food waste they throw away.
Following waste composition analysis by the council in 2014, it was found food waste accounted for 43,000 tonnes of residual waste in Warwickshire – which should be deposited in mixed organic waste containers.
However, since launching the campaign the council has seen the amount of food waste deposited in residual bins drop by an average of 29kg per year, while there has been a 15.6% rise in the amount of commingled food and garden waste sent for processing.
Awareness of food waste recycling also appears to have increased with an additional 3,000 subscriptions to the Recycle for Warwickshire e-newsletter and a ’10-fold’ rise in social media followers.
IVC
Mixed organic waste collected in Warwickshire is currently sent for processing at two in-vessel composting (IVC) facilities; waste in the north of the county of sent to the Earthworm IVC under the council’s contract with FCC Environment, with waste in the south sent to Biffa’s plant in Ufton.
Asked whether the council had been impacted by the associated costs of sending 15.6% more food waste to IVC, Mr Whitehouse said it was still ‘around half’ the cost of landfilling the material.
The council claims it is achieving annual savings of £343,000 in disposal costs while its latest analysis shows a 21% decrease in black bag waste against a 2% national increase.
Mr Whitehouse said: “We are delighted that food waste recycling has caught on as a result of this campaign. We received 11,000 entries alone to our competition, and we forecast that on average recycling is now at 55% across the whole county compared to 53% in 2013/14.”
He added that Warwickshire would be conducting further analysis of its waste arisings at the end of 2015, with hopes that the data will show a further tonnage increase for biowaste processing.
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