Food waste collections save council more than £500,000

More than 4,000 tonnes of food scraps were collected in Swindon in the last year

Residents have helped their local council save more than £500,000 after putting out thousands of tonnes in food waste for recycling.

Since weekly food waste collection was rolled out to nearly every household across Swindon in November 2023, 4,440 tonnes of food scraps have been put out for collection.

Councillor Chris Watts said Swindon Borough Council was trying to be "as responsible as we can".

He added: "Although we’re in a great position in that we send so little waste to landfill, we could make things even better if we recycled more of our waste, including both food and plastics."

While the authority has to pay for waste to be taken away and processed or landfilled, it makes a small profit on the recycling of food waste.

It's estimated that the UK throws away 9.5m tonnes of food every year

Mr Watts wants to encourage more people to put out their food scraps, such as leftovers, vegetable peelings and meat and fish bones, and to recycle more of their household waste generally.

He added: "Thank you to everyone who has supported our new food waste collection service since it has been introduced, helping us achieve a greener Swindon."

The borough council is keen to help more people recycle their food waste and suggests they order the indoor and outdoor food waste caddies from its website.

All the food waste collected in Swindon is taken to a company in Wiltshire, where a process called anaerobic digestion is used to break it down. This generates methane which is collected and converted into biogas that is used to generate electricity.