Aberdeen City Council will provide collection service to other households with brown bins, a total of 51,000 homes, in later 2009.
The move by the city council marks a further step towards reducing the amount of waste Aberdeen sends to landfill and cutting the volume of greenhouse gases the city produces.
Previously, food waste was collected along with residual (black bin) waste and sent to landfill. Now it will be processed through Keenan Recycling’s new Vertical Composting Unit (VCU). The end product can be used for a variety of applications including agriculture, horticulture and landscaping
The expansion of GBP3.2 million New Deer facility has created the VCU facility for recycling food waste, which is set to deliver major benefits for the local community.
The installation of in-vessel composting technology will enable the firm to deliver a huge increase in the amount of food, animal and garden waste being recycled and reduce the amount of biodegradable material being sent to landfill. The use of in-vessel chambers for recycling the waste into compost ensures that no unpleasant odours are released at the site during the process.
Currently Keenan Recycling processes around 30,000 tonnes of green waste at the site, where 11 people are employed, and the new technology will provide an extra 20,000 tonnes of capacity to process kitchen waste.
The council’s kerbside food waste collection service allows residents to dispose of their food waste in an environmentally friendly way, along with garden waste in their brown wheeled bins, while freeing up space in their black wheeled bins. The council will continue to collect brown bins fortnightly.
Councillor Ron Clark, chairman of the Waste Management Working Group said: Sending food waste to landfill is not only expensive in financial terms, it carries a significant environmental cost too.
Recycling our food waste by composting it is a very easy and effective way to improve our green credentials and reduce the amount of rubbish being buried in landfill sites.
I am proud that Aberdeen City Council is taking the lead in food waste production and being so proactive in tackling this important environmental issue.
This is an interesting and very important step for Aberdeen City Council to take and I really hope that residents take advantage of this new service.
We all have a responsibility for the environment, and it is incumbent on each of us to do what we can to reduce the amount of waste we produce, and reduce the amount of rubbish we send to landfill.
Composting our food waste is a really easy and practical way of doing that.
Keenan Recycling Director Grant Keenan said: We have worked with Aberdeen City Council and SITA from day one, when the first brown wheeled bins for garden waste were made available to the public and for the past two years we have been working very closely to bring this project to fruition.
It now gives me great pleasure to see the vision realized and a real sense of satisfaction to know that this new service will benefit the environment, the tax payer, the local economy and help reduce farmers’ fertilizer bills.
Residents who are benefiting from the food waste collection service from April 21, 2009 have been provided with a kitchen caddy and biodegradable, compostable bags which keep bins clean, reduce odor, and reduce interference from flies, to put their food waste in.
Residents are asked to wait until they receive a kitchen caddy before beginning to put food waste in the brown bin because the service is being rolled out across the city in stages and the material collected must be handled differently to normal garden waste.
