Preston to withdraw food waste collections in 2015
Preston City Council’s cabinet has agreed to discontinue the city’s food waste collection service from next year in a bid to reduce costs.
At a meeting last Wednesday (24 September), the cabinet heard that by removing the separate food waste collection service (which has been offered to 15,000 properties since 2005), and allowing residents to place food waste in residual waste bins for processing at Lancashire County Council’s mechanical biological treatment facility, the council could save £90,000. The vast majority of this (£70,000) would come from removing three posts associated with the service.
The council has acknowledged that although the MBT method would not be ‘as beneficial as composting the material separately, there is an environmental benefit in this treatment route’.
It is anticipated that removing this service would reduce the council’s recycling rate by approximately one per cent (to 33 per cent), based on current collected tonnages of 520 tonnes. The council also admits that the move could be unpopular with residents.
Despite this, the council agreed to remove the food waste collection service from 28 February 2015.
Councillor Martyn Rawlinson, Resources Office Holder, said: “It’s a saving we need to make for budget purposes, but it’s a service that has become, to an extent, obsolete. But it does mean for people without a garden waste bin they are only going to get food waste collected fortnightly once again [through the residual waste collection service].”
'No impact on operating costs'
Speaking of the fact that Lancashire County Council will soon have to process Preston's food waste, a spokesperson told Resource: "We operate our own mechanical biological treatment facilities, which are not subject to gate fees. The small quantity of food waste referred to is negligible in terms of the overall throughput of the facilities and will have no impact on operating costs.
"The food waste is beneficial in the anaerobic digestion process at our facilities and will assist in the production of energy, which in turn will help to offset operating costs.
"Furthermore, Lancashire produces more garden and food waste than our own in-vessel composting facilities can accommodate, particularly during peak summer periods, and, as such, third-party costs are incurred in order to process the additional garden and food waste.
"By treating Preston's food waste through the AD process, some of these additional third-party costs can also be avoided."
The council added that is was "acutely aware" of the need for waste collection authorities in Lancashire to reduce collection costs, and by working through the Lancashire Waste Partnership, local councils could "increase efficiency and reduce costs by maximising use of the treatment processes".
Find out more about Lancashire County Council’s MBT in Farington Waste Recovery Park.