Horsham District Council has said it would rather deliver a good service than a rushed service when it comes to food waste collections.
The council is one of 79 authorities across the country that won’t meet the Government’s March 31 deadline for the roll-out of the new service – but it won’t miss it by much.
A council spokesman said three-fifths of the district would receive the service by March 31, with the whole district covered within a further two weeks.
They added: “It was more important to us to deliver a good service, rather than implement a rushed service. For that reason, we decided to roll the service out over a five-week period, starting in the first week only with Monday collections.
“That will allow us to learn lessons on the practical implementation of the service and make improvements on a week-by-week basis.”
Launching a food waste collection service has not been a simple affair. For a start, funding provided by the Government to get things up and running has not covered the cost – and councils will receive no help with the annual cost of providing the service.
The spokesman said: “The introduction of the food waste recycling service is the most significant change to [the] council’s recycling and waste service for over 20 years.
“Introducing the service has been a complex project which has included the purchase of 15 new collection vehicles, 130,000 indoor and outdoor caddies and recruiting 30 new members of staff.
“The lead-in times for the delivery of vehicles and caddies were long, so we therefore placed our orders as soon as we could to put us in a position to introduce the service in line with the Government’s timetable.
“The project has also involved our partners from West Sussex County Council who have delivered a significant transformation of the Mechanical and Biological Treatment Plant in Warnham so that it is ready to receive the food waste from mid-March.
“This has also been a complex and pressurised project.
“We believe our new food waste collections will make recycling even easier for our residents. As a district, we have the highest recycling rate in West Sussex and we believe the introduction of food waste recycling will go far to building upon our successful track record to place us amongst the best in the country.”
The food waste will be used for fertiliser and energy.
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