ZWS awards Scottish Borders Council £250,000 for food waste service

Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) has awarded Scottish Borders Council with a £250,000 funding package to assist with the launch of its new food waste collection service.

Under the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012, all local authorities in Scotland must, from 1 January 2016, arrange for all occupiers of non-rural properties to have separate food waste collections. As such, ZWS has been offering funding to support local authorities in introducing weekly collections of food waste, such as by providing councils with the finance to purchase the capital assets required.

Scottish Borders Council has now revealed that it has been awarded with almost £250,000 from the Food Waste Programme for Local Authorities 2014/15 to assist with the provision of food waste collection vehicles and the purchase of food waste caddies and liners.

The service will be rolled out in the spring to around 24,000 homes in Galashiels (including Tweedbank), Hawick, Jedburgh, Peebles and Selkirk.

Households that are to receive a food waste collection will, in due course, be supplied with a small caddy to keep in the kitchen. They will also be given a larger caddy to keep outside where the contents of the smaller caddy can be transfered prior to weekly collection at the kerbside.

The contract for the processing of this food waste is yet to be awarded.

‘Great news’ for Borders residents

The Executive Member for Environmental Services at Scottish Borders Council, Councillor David Paterson, said: “I am delighted that the council has secured this funding package from Zero Waste Scotland which will help to cover some of the costs of introducing the mandatory food waste collections. 

“The council and ZWS have been working closely together, and we look forward to continuing to do so during this project.”

Iain Gulland, Chief Executive of Zero Waste Scotland, added: “We’re delighted to award a substantial funding package, worth almost £250,000, to help Scottish Borders Council to introduce food waste collections for residents. 

“Over 1.3 million households across Scotland now have a food waste collection thanks to Zero Waste Scotland’s support. This will avoid thousands of tonnes of food waste going to landfill unnecessarily, and it is great news that residents in the Borders will be benefitting from this service too.”

Find out more about Scottish Borders Council’s food waste collection plans.