New food waste campaign launched in Bristol

A new campaign has been launched by Bristol Waste Company to encourage Bristol residents to put food waste into their designated food waste bin and reduce the amount of food they throw out.

Launched yesterday (1 July), the new campaign, called ‘Stop Bin-Digestion’, intends to increase awareness as to what can be put into food waste bins, due to the fact that 20,000 tonnes of food waste gets thrown into Bristol’s black bins every year.

This equates to about 25 per cent of black bins being filled with food. Of this amount, nearly three quarters is completely avoidable food waste.

The campaign also emphasises the impact of food waste on household finances, making the point that the average Bristol family throws away £730 of edible food every year.

To address this problem, the ‘Stop Bin-Digestion’ campaign will provide residents from 100,000 households across the city with helpful tips on buying, storing, cooking and disposing of food.

As part of the campaign, Bristol Waste Company will encourage residents to remove all packaging from their food waste before they put it into their brown food waste caddies, which will then be sent to the GENeco anaerobic digestion (AD) facility where it is turned into biogas.

Stop Bin-Digestion seeks to build on the success of a previous campaign, ‘Slim my Waste - Feed my Face’, which saw an increase in food waste collected across the city of 23 per cent, the ‘Stop Bin-Digestion’ campaign aims to further inspire Bristol residents to use their designated food bins.

Read more: Taking a bite out of food waste in Bristol

Residents across the city will also receive a pack containing stickers to decorate their black bins and caddies, as well as an information leaflet. An outdoor advertising campaign will also be rolled out to support the initiative.
Bristol Waste Company is encouraging residents to share pictures of their bins on social media using the hashtag #StopBinDigestion, with those sharing pictures entered into a prize draw.

Gwen Frost, Head of Innovation and Sustainability at Bristol Waste Company, said: “Following on from our award-winning Slim My Waste campaign we wanted to remind residents not to place any food into the general waste bin and to make sure they use their brown food caddies to ensure its recycled and stops #StopBinDigestion. We know that the average bin in Bristol still contains more than 25 per cent of food waste. The Bin-Digestion campaign focuses on how to keep your bin happy and help to reduce unnecessary waste. Simply by planning your shop and meals you can reduce unnecessary food waste massively.

“With lockdown restrictions, people are buying and cooking more food at home and we want them to start to re-evaluate their behaviours with food. We believe now is a good time for us to be thinking about how we buy, cook and dispose of unwanted and leftover food.”