Weekly food waste collection trial to be launched in five areas of Slough

A weekly food waste collection trial is set to launch in five areas in Slough this July.

The council has introduced the trial which will bring 'food waste collections to Slough for the first time'.

The trial will start from Monday, July 1 in parts of Britwell, Chalvey and Langley, on the Diamond Road Estate and in Colnbrook.

Each household in the trial areas, which currently has red and grey bins, will receive two caddies – a smaller one for inside and a bigger one for outside – which can be used for all types of food waste.

Postcards are being provided in all trial areas this week to explain what will happen and this will be followed up with the delivery of the caddies and another postcard from the middle of June.

The postcards feature cartoon character Kit the caddy to encourage families to get involved in using the new service.

The food caddies will be collected weekly on the same day as normal collection from Monday, July 1.

If the trial is successful, it is hoped that the scheme will be rolled out across the borough.

Councillor Gurcharan Singh Manku, lead member for environmental services, said: “Currently around 40 per cent or more of what goes in a normal refuse bin is food waste.

“Kit the caddy loves every morsel of food whether it is banana skins, vegetable peelings, leftovers of any kind, meat, fish and even bones, coffee grounds, tea bags and eggshells. As long as it is food it can go in the caddy.

“In fact, the only things that can’t go in is non-food waste like packaging, pet waste and garden waste.

“And residents don’t need to be worried about smells because the indoor caddy can be lined with a bin bag and emptied in the outdoor bin still in the bag.”

He added: “Since the normal bin collections went to alternate weeks, residents have been clamouring for weekly food waste collections; to not only cut down on the amount of waste that goes into their grey bins but also issues with smells, maggots and other pests particularly in hot weather.

“With this trial, we will be able to see just how a food waste collection could work across the whole borough.”

For more information and to view the full list of the roads included in the trial areas, visit: www.slough.gov.uk/foodwaste