Food waste collection FAQs

We appreciate it may take a while to get used to, but we encourage everyone to recycle their food waste as small actions can add up to big climate benefits. 

Using the food waste collection service can also help to free up space in your rubbish bin and manage your rubbish over a two-week collection cycle.

We will provide you with everything you need - see 'what types of caddies will I receive?' for more details.

Food waste is approximately 70% water and requires more energy when being burned, so recycling is a more efficient method of disposal. 

You can read more benefits of recycling food waste below.

Recycling your food waste has many benefits. For example:

• separating your food waste helps you to see how much is being thrown away, giving you the opportunity to cut back and save money on food you don’t end up eating
• because food waste is collected more often than general household waste, your kitchen and bins will stay fresher, with fewer smells and less chance of attracting flies
• recycling food waste allows you to free up space in your rubbish bin which helps to manage your non-recyclable rubbish over a two-week collection cycle
• recycling food waste is better for the environment as it is transformed into green energy and fertiliser that helps support local farms - turning leftovers into something useful

If you do not produce food waste, we will still provide you with a caddy so you can use the service in the future if needs be.

Food waste collections will start from Monday 5 October 2026.

Your food waste will be collected every week on the same day as your other bin collections.

You can check your bin collections using our bin collection calendar.

Please place the grey outdoor caddy next to your black or brown bin (whichever is due to be emptied) at the edge of your property by 6:00am on collection day and make sure it can be clearly seen.

Top tip: Don’t forget to number your caddy.

We'll deliver two caddies to each household including a:

• 7-litre indoor caddy for your kitchen
• 23-litre lockable outdoor caddy to keep outside and deter pests (this is smaller than your wheelie bins)

The caddies will be delivered in August and September 2026.

We are introducing food waste collections to households first and will then be introducing food waste collections to flats with communal bins in 2027. 

Our flats recycling page provides information about the different types of recycling we provide to flats.

No, we will not be providing caddy liners.

You can use any bag to line your food caddy providing it is not black. For example, you could use food packaging such as bread bags or salad bags.

You can also use newspaper or choose to not use any type of liner.