Lewisham council is urging residents to use their food waste bins Pic: allispossible.org.uk Flickr
Lewisham residents are being urged to recycle more, after the borough’s new food waste service started this week.
The service has been working since Monday, but the recycling units were delivered to approximately 80,000 homes in the Lewisham council throughout August and September, after not meeting the previous starting date in June. The package consists of a small caddy for your kitchen, to dispose of your daily food waste, as well as an outdoor food waste bin.
No data is available yet, but a Lewisham Council spokesperson told ELL: “We are delighted with how the first week of our new food waste collection service has gone. Thousands of people are using their silver food waste bins everyday. Our waste teams have been working since dawn each day to collect and recycle food waste from across Lewisham.
“We urge East London Lines readers to use the weekly food waste service. It will help us recycle more, reduce the amount of rubbish in black refuse bins and save up to £500,000 a year.”
This addition to the system means the non-recyclable rubbish collection will be now changed to fortnightly, and the food waste caddies will be collected every week.
Many people have already received the kit and started using the service. Maeve McElwain, 20, from the Brockley area of Lewisham, told Eastlondonlines: “I really like it. I use it every day and think it’s a great way to encourage people to think about how much waste they are throwing out. Although I am not sure how many older people would use it, as it’s the sort of thing you would just forget about.”
All four South-East London boroughs now have similar food waste management systems, with Hackney and Croydon introducing theirs over 10 years ago.
The new service aims to significantly reduce the amount of food waste in the borough, an issue that could be costing your family more than you think.
The national recycling campaign for England, Recycle Now, said: “Food waste is a major issue and not just about good food going to waste; wasting food costs the average family with children almost £60 a month and has serious environmental implications too.”
Recycle Now have created a video explaining how your food waste is recycled:
You can check your new collection day now at www.lewisham.gov.uk/binchanges. Some properties on red routes, or without space for bins, will not get the new service. If you have not received your food waste management bins, you can check if your property is eligible here.
Have you received your food waste bins? Let us know what you think about the service in the comments.
I put out the food recycling bin on 2nd Oct as this was supposed to be the first day of collection for us in Lewisham. When I returned later the bin was unemptied. Other recycling was collected as normal. This has been repeated yesterday on 9th Oct.
What is going on?
all very good hyping it up but no one in my area (SE12) has had their new food waste bins picked up for two weeks.
We’ve contacted Lewisham Council about the above complaints and received the following response:
“We’re sorry Kaz and Tony’s food bins weren’t emptied and missed collections can be reported online: https://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/wasterecycle/your-bins/Pages/report-a-problem-with-your-bin-collection.aspx
Bins must be placed on, or by, the pavement by 6am on the collection day, otherwise the bin crew will assume you don’t want a collection.”
Can we get a reduction in council tax as you continue to erode services to customers under the guise of being green.
An utter rubbish idea !
Agree, this service is a shame and totally counter productive. Bins are left outside on the streets by all residents full for ages are you do not know when it will be collected. the reduction to collect only every two weeks is making our street more polluted and visually ugly with rubbish everywhere getting out of full bins. Paying council taxes to receive such a bad service is a disgrace, where are the minimum services of cleanness and security that you would expect to be the council main job??
I am fed up with your so called bin men they do not empty my small food bin each week they just
leave it and I always leave it out for them because they wont take it out of the bin room yet the men that
wheel the big bins out of the room it is perfect waist of time.
What can I do with my food waste this week as the bins are small and will not hold 2weeks supply,I have reported that it was not emptied but doubt it will be done again before Tuesday. Can I use a black bag and rest it in top of the silver /grey bin .
Lewisham resident.