A new food waste service recently rolled out to five towns in Dumfries and Galloway is to be expanded.
The majority of residents living in Dumfries, Lockerbie, Annan, Gretna and Dalbeattie recently joined Stranraer in benefitting from the waste collection service.
Around 28,000 sets of 23-litre outside caddies, kitchen caddies and rolls of biodegradable liners were issued to householders in the towns recently.
People living in flats were excluded, but council chiefs now plan to distribute food waste caddies to those residents over the next two months.
The matter is due to be discussed at the ad-hoc waste collection, treatment and disposal sub-committee on Thursday.
A report due to be tabled at the meeting reads: “Since the reintroduction of the new food collection waste service in Stranraer and the rollout of the new food waste service to the five regulated postcode towns, the service has uplifted and recycled over 90 tonnes.
“The food waste collected is sent for anaerobic digestion via a local off-taker in Dumfries.
“The anaerobic digestion process recycles the food waste into methane, used for energy, and an agricultural fertiliser.
“Once the delivery of food waste caddies and any associated mop up work is complete, the service will commence the introduction of the food waste service to flatted residences that are serviced by communal refuse and recycling bins.
“This is scheduled to be completed by the end of December 2021.”
Council waste officers will work in partnership with registered social landlords and housing associations to find the best solution for specific locations for communal 180 litre food bins into which residents will empty their kitchen caddies.
At present, with six main towns covered in the food waste scheme, this equates to almost half of the region’s population.
The council will also be pro-active in promoting the scheme to make it a success. The committee report states: “In the future we will look to survey set-out rates to encourage usage of the service.
“While volumes collected should reduce over time, as segregation generally leads to householder habits changing in terms of disposing of out-of-date food, maintaining high set-out rates is important.
“A communications plan will be developed reflective of the survey results.”
Council management insisted that initial teething problems have been resolved and say that levels of contamination in the standard bins have significantly dropped.
