The facts behind food waste are truly shocking. Each year in London, we throw away 910,000 tonnes of food from our homes, of which 540,000 tonnes (60%) is good food and drink that we could have enjoyed. What’s more, we’re throwing our money away, spending £1.4 billion on food destined for the bin!
Unfortunately a big proportion of population still isn’t recycling food correctly and is throwing it in a black bag. Not only does it contaminate any waste that could have been recycled and causes reduction in recycling percentage but it also ends up in landfill instead of being used for biogas which is used to produce electricity, heat or transport fuels.
Landfill and why does it smell so bad?
Living in Colchester, and Stanway more importantly, we hear complaints about the “eggy” smell coming from landfill, especially in summer months. With warm weather, we all tend to open our windows to enjoy some much needed fresh air. However, with warm weather, the food waste that ended up in landfill, starts to decompose, creating gas and that offensive smell.
Can I throw food waste in a skip?
Simple answer to that is NO. Imagine skip as a waste disposal solution, for items which you can’t discart in your normal waste collections. Your waste which is in the skip is sorted and segregated by our staff. We specialise in recycling other waste stream, such as :
- Wood waste
- Plastic waste (bulky items, too large to place into your clear bags)
- Rubble and Brick Waste
- Soil Waste
- Plasterboard
- Cardboard (when there is just too much for your curbside collection)
- Green Waste
Recycling food could really bring down the carbon footprint we cause each day and to think that we could all help by doing our bit by segregating food left overs, peelings etc in a green food waste bin provided by council.
Take your time, look after our planet and recycle! 😉