Residents encouraged to recycle food waste and help power homes
A new campaign encouraging residents to recycle their food waste has been launched by Lewisham Council, in a bid to boost recycling rates.
A combination of on-street advertising, social media promotion, targeted leafleting and branded refuse vehicles will be used to encourage residents to dispose of food waste in their grey food waste bin so it can be converted into fertiliser and renewable energy.
Around 7,000 tonnes of food waste are currently collected for recycling in Lewisham each year – equivalent to more than 560 double-decker buses – but food waste continues to make up around 38% of general refuse (black bin) collections.
It is also a major source of contamination in dry and mixed recycling (green bin) collections, with some residents mistakenly disposing of food waste in green recycling bins, which cannot be used for food waste recycling.
Food waste that is recycled properly is sent for anaerobic digestion – a process which converts food scraps into fertiliser and renewable energy used to power homes.
Six recycled teabags can produce enough energy to boil a standard household kettle, while one lorry load of food waste can generate enough energy to power over 20,000 TVs for an hour.
All residents in kerbside properties are able to recycle their food waste in their grey food waste bin, with plans in place to expand food waste recycling to blocks of flats that do not currently have access to food waste recycling.
Cllr Louise Krupski, Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Action, said: “Recycling your food waste is quick, easy and generates renewable energy. Since we rolled out food waste recycling in 2017, we’ve seen a significant increase in recycling rates, but we want to ensure as many people as possible are using their food waste bins to get rid of food scraps that can no longer be used.
“Not only does food waste recycling reduce the amount of rubbish that ends up in our black bins and save the borough money that can go towards other vital local services, it also helps support efforts to tackle the Climate Emergency and reduce carbon emissions.”
As well as encouraging residents to recycle food that can no longer be used, the Council is also involved in efforts to reduce food waste as a whole - supporting ReLondon’s ‘Eat Like a Londoner’ campaign, which provides people with simple and effective ways to use leftover food and reduce the amount of produce that ends up getting thrown away.
Reducing waste and boosting recycling is a key component of the Council’s Climate Emergency Action Plan, which aims to make Lewisham a net-zero borough by 2030.