Weekly Food Waste Service Resumes

Food waste recycling will be taking place again in Newcastle-under-Lyme following a temporary suspension.

Residents can recycle their food waste again from Monday 17 August, after a temporary suspension to focus on making collections safe during the Coronavirus pandemic and launching a new recycling service earlier than planned.

Residents should put their green caddy out with the blue recycling bin and bag one week, and rubbish bin the next, on their usual collection day. It’s important to put the caddy in front of the bin so it can always be seen.

Additional or replacement caddies – including silver kitchen and green outdoor ones – can be ordered online at https://bit.ly/3ant5Pz

Food waste such as bread, plate scrapings, vegetable peelings, tea bags and bones is sent to an anaerobic digestion plant in Staffordshire where it’s turned into a gas used to make electricity, compost and a liquid similar to fertiliser.

Cllr Trevor Johnson, Cabinet member for environment and recycling, said: “I’m pleased to say that our weekly food waste service is starting up again after a relatively short suspension during these unprecedented times. It’s a really valued service and residents have been very patient and understanding in the recent challenging months which I’d like to thank them for. Now it’s very much business as usual. This service is the best way to get food waste collected from home because it’s weekly and stops it sitting in a rubbish bin for two weeks. If residents have got the caddies – but no free liners – they can use a carrier bag to get started and tie another to their green caddy handle on collection day and our crews will leave a new roll. This process also applies whenever households get near to the end of their roll. However liners don’t have to be used any carrier bag or other plastic bags will do just as well.”

In addition to weekly food waste collections, the Council has introduced a popular recycling service where residents use a blue wheelie bin for mixed plastic pots, tubs, trays and bottles, cans, tins and clean foil, glass bottles and jars as well as a blue reusable bag for paper and card which are collected every fortnight. This new system is cost effective to operate, simpler for residents to use and will help to keep streets looking tidy.
More information about food waste, and the new recycling service, is available at https://bit.ly/3iGRnHv