Fantastic early results from food waste campaign

Over the last few weeks, you may have noticed we have been out and about putting stickers on black household bins, encouraging residents not to put their food waste in them but instead to recycle it using a food bin/caddy.

And to help with this, we have been offering discounted outdoor food caddies, reduced to £10 for a limited period.

There has been a great response to the campaign so far, with lots of people ordering caddies and starting to recycle their leftover food, and we would like to thank everyone for their support.

Early results have shown an overall 11 per cent increase in food waste tonnages collected since we launched this campaign seven weeks ago, with a bigger increase of 16.7 per cent across weeks four to six.

And last week, week seven, as the deliveries of the food bins that were ordered really gathered pace, the increase was 22 per cent, which is a fantastic result.

The extra bit of good news is that, although the sticker roll out is now complete, we still have a few outdoor food caddies left at the discounted price of £10.

But you need to be quick and get your order in by the end of this Thursday (3 April) – just go to our website.

Food caddies are emptied weekly using a separate vehicle and are easy to rinse out and keep clean.

Residents can place any raw or cooked food in their caddy to be recycled, but not anything that is not solid food, such as oils, liquids or packaging of any sort.

This project has been jointly organised and paid for by us and Kent County Council, and because recycling food uses less energy and is less costly than burning food waste mixed with general rubbish, the money spent on it should be recovered by lower disposal costs in the future.

When food waste is recycled, it creates gas to power homes and a fertiliser for farms, so it’s a win all round.

Once again, your support for what we have been seeking to achieve with this campaign has been really appreciated and we look forward to emptying those new food caddies for many years to come.

Published: 2 April 2025