Exclusive: Householders to get slop buckets in campaign against food waste

Every household in England could be issued with a slop bucket for food waste under proposals be announced "within weeks" as the Government declares war on Britain's waste mountain.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn told the Yorkshire Post "it does not make sense" to continue burying waste food, glass, cans, paper, tins or wood in the ground where they create harmful greenhouse emissions. A formal consultation will be launched on banning them from landfill sites altogether.

Any outright ban on burying food waste would likely see all households issued with a kitchen slop bin by their local council, to be collected for composting or biological treatment.

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But the Local Government Association, representing councils across England and Wales, has responded cautiously to the suggestion.

"The Government needs to think carefully about how a landfill ban would work and how much it would cost," LGA environment board chairman Gary Porter said. "The question of who will be responsible for ensuring certain types of waste don't end up in the ground needs answering - will it be the householder, the council or the company that runs the landfill site? And a landfill ban will require costly new waste-processing plants to be built."

In an exclusive interview ahead of his appearance as keynote speaker at the Yorkshire Post Environment Awards on March 4, Mr Benn said more waste plants would indeed be required. He gave his backing to new technologies such as anaerobic digesters – through which organic waste is converted into energy – and, more controversially, to a wave of new waste incinerators.

In comments signalling an increasingly militant attitude towards recycling, Mr Benn said. "I think in 20, 25 years time, people will look back and say, 'You did what with aluminium? You put food waste in rotting piles producing methane? You threw away wood? Tin? Glass? Paper?'

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"It doesn't make sense. There are markets for them these days.

"For me, (a landfill ban) is the next stage, building on what we've achieved for household waste. It's about trying to get as close to zero waste as you can."

In Yorkshire, only three of the region's 22 councils currently collect food waste separately. Mr Benn is confident such systems can work across England but stressed the detail of waste collection would be left to individual councils.

Another key pillar of the Government's shift away from landfill is an increased reliance on large waste incinerators which generate useful heat and electricity, known as energy from waste.

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Recent proposals for waste incinerators at Hull, Leeds and in North Yorkshire have all proved controversial but the Environment Secretary said controls on emissions were "very strict" and he would happily live next door to such a plant.

But has winning public support for tough environmental measures been made more difficult by recent controversies about the data behind climate science?

"Of course it's had an impact - there's no doubt about that whatsoever," he said. "But the fundamental, broad scientific consensus is very clear – climate change is happening, the climate is warming, humankind is responsible."

Success in spite of scare stories

For residents in three areas of Yorkshire, slop bins have been the norm for some time.

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Council chiefs in Hull, Calderdale and Richmondshire have all introduced separate food waste collection services for their residents over the past three years. Households are issued with a small, lidded bin to keep in their kitchen, complete with free biodegradable bin liners. When the smaller bin is full, the liner is tied up and taken out to a larger bin outside, which is collected during normal recycling and refuse collections.

Despite tabloid scare stories about food waste bins leading to infestations of rodents, maggots and bad smells, all three authorities state their schemes have been a success.

"We haven't had any feedback at all about any of these perceived issues," said Doug Sharp, waste development manager at Hull, where recycling rates have rocketed following the introduction of the system. "It's a non-issue."