Home visits to increase food recycling in Caerphilly

Every home in Caerphilly county will be visited as part of a new campaign to get more people recycling their food waste.

The move follows a monitoring programme by Caerphilly council of 7,000 randomly-selected homes which found only 38% were recycling.

Over the next few weeks, council officials will go to 80,000 homes in a bid to increase that figure.

The authority said 7,000 tonnes of food waste was not being recycled.

Councillor Nigel George, cabinet member for community and leisure services, said: "If every household participated in recycling food waste, the council could save nearly £200,000 a year which could go towards protecting other frontline services."

The Welsh Government has set targets which require councils to recycle at least 64% of all waste collected by 2019-20 and 70% by 2024-25.

Failure to do so could lead to significant fines of up to £1m being imposed on councils.