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mal55



Joined: 15 Jul 2009
Posts: 168
Location: Erewash or in the dog house
PostPosted: Tue May 17, 11 10:41 am    Post subject: Council Green Waste Collections Reply with quote
    

North Lincs Council have just sent out letters to say that from now on, kitchen waste (un-cooked vegetable peelings etc.)can no longer be put in the green waste bin along with garden waste.
Has this happened in any other areas and if so what is the excuse being used?

mal55



Joined: 15 Jul 2009
Posts: 168
Location: Erewash or in the dog house
PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 11 4:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Is this just a local decision then??? Here's what the council have said to me:

Quote:
"Please see the attached response to your email received on Thursday 12 May 2011.

Kind regards

Waste Services Officer


This e-mail expresses the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the view of the Council. Please be aware that anything included in an e-mail may have to be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act and cannot be regarded as confidential. This communication is intended for the addressee(s) only. Please notify the sender if received in error. All Email is monitored and recorded.


BROWN RECYCLING BIN CHANGES

The recent change to the arrangements for managing fruit and vegetable waste has been prompted by the previous outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The outbreak was attributed to inadequately treated food waste being fed back to cattle. This prompted the introduction of Regulations governing the processing of waste Animal By-Products (meat and meat products, dairy, eggs, etc) and other foodstuffs that may have come into contact with this material.

Regulatory agencies locally (Animal Health, Environment Agency) have now determined that even fruit and vegetable wastes processed within a domestic or commercial kitchen in which animal by-products have also been prepared, could be cross contaminated and as such must now be subject to the same regulatory regime.

To prevent food waste going to landfill we are in support of a national campaign called Love Food Hate Waste, which provides helpful hints and tips to reduce the amount of food waste created in the first instance. Please see the following link.

The following items can also be placed in the brown bin for recycling:
· Grass clippings
· Light garden prunings and hedge trimmings
· Flowers and pot plants
· Leaves
· Small twigs and branches

It was revealed during a detailed compositional analysis that only a very small proportion (<8%) of the material collected in the brown wheeled bins is food and kitchen waste. This proportion is even smaller by volume.

The additional cost to landfill this material is also only a fraction of expenditure that would be incurred if the whole of the combined green and food waste stream were processed in accordance with the requirements of the Animal By-Products Regulations. By removing the food waste we are able to continue composting the remaining green waste using open windrow techniques at a much reduced fee.

We are encouraging residents to home compost as it is a natural form of recycling garden and kitchen waste such as vegetables, plants and leaves into a quality compost at virtually no cost to you. Fruit and vegetable waste can be put into a home composter as they are not regulated by the same restrictions a large scale composting site is. Keeping certain items out of your compost bin such as cooked vegetables and meat will prevent odours and unwanted pests. For further information please see our home composting web pages.

Whilst we will no longer be collecting fruit and vegetable waste at the kerbside, you should have received information with your green and blue box collection calendar detailing the new small electrical scheme that will commence on Monday 16 May. This enables residents to recycle their old and unwanted small electricals including kettles, toasters and many other small electrical items at the kerbside alongside their blue and green recycling boxes. This scheme has been organised by our contractors Palm Recycling Ltd who collect the kerbside recycling boxes and textile sack on behalf of the council and is at no extra cost to the authority.

I trust this has responded to your queries.

Yours sincerely "


Sorry it's a bit long. How the heck would waste for composting be fed to livestock! They didn't even bother to reply to my enquiry as to the exact stage at which garden waste such as salad thinnings, damaged cabbage leaves and windfall fruit become toxic waste!!
I'd always believed that the high temperatures at which local authorities compost waste meterial sterilized it anyway.
The only reason I can see for this is saving money through getting rid of the compostable material bins in a lot of areas with small or no gardens.

tahir



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45389
Location: Essex
PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 11 4:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Dunno about any of that but we use recycled green waste as a mulch, you cannot believe the amount of stuff that ends up in it; metal, wood, plastic all sorts.

oldish chris



Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 4148
Location: Comfortably Wet Southport
PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 11 5:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

"Green Waste" is a contradiction in terms (IMHO).

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator


Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 11 6:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

mal55 wrote:
How the heck would waste for composting be fed to livestock! They didn't even bother to reply to my enquiry as to the exact stage at which garden waste such as salad thinnings, damaged cabbage leaves and windfall fruit become toxic waste!!
I'd always believed that the high temperatures at which local authorities compost waste meterial sterilized it anyway.


The compost will not be fed to animals but could easily be used where animals are and they could pick it up in their food. High temps might kill most things but I expect they can't guarantee all the compost reaches those temps or indeed if the average temp kills all pathogens.

Sadly it seems to have gone the same way as feeding any kitchen waste to animals.

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator


Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35056
Location: Devon
PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 11 6:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

The whole shebang can go into the green bin here. Food waste, including meat waste, garden waste, cardboard and garden waste, if you consider all that to be waste (which we don't). Sounds like someone interpreting things the way they want to to me.

RichardW



Joined: 24 Aug 2006
Posts: 8443
Location: Llyn Peninsular North Wales
PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 11 9:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I guess it comes under the same rules that say you cant have a home domestic compost heap within X (I cant remember) meters of as pig.

mal55



Joined: 15 Jul 2009
Posts: 168
Location: Erewash or in the dog house
PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 11 10:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I can understand a ban on cooked food or meat but not vegetable peelings. We even have a "caddy" in the kitchen that was provided by the council for making recycling kitchen waste easier. We compost most of our waste anyway so it doesn't make any difference to us. Had this ban come just after the last foot and mouth outbreak I could have gone along with the reasoning, but to wait so long just adds to my feeling that this is a cost cutting exercise . "To hell with saving the planet let's save money!" seems to be the watch cry now.

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator


Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35056
Location: Devon
PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 11 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

mal55 wrote:
I can understand a ban on cooked food or meat but not vegetable peelings. We even have a "caddy" in the kitchen that was provided by the council for making recycling kitchen waste easier. We compost most of our waste anyway so it doesn't make any difference to us. Had this ban come just after the last foot and mouth outbreak I could have gone along with the reasoning, but to wait so long just adds to my feeling that this is a cost cutting exercise . "To hell with saving the planet let's save money!" seems to be the watch cry now.


Yep. That's what it sounds like to me too.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator


Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 11 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

mal55 wrote:
I can understand a ban on cooked food or meat but not vegetable peelings. We even have a "caddy" in the kitchen that was provided by the council for making recycling kitchen waste easier. We compost most of our waste anyway so it doesn't make any difference to us. Had this ban come just after the last foot and mouth outbreak I could have gone along with the reasoning, but to wait so long just adds to my feeling that this is a cost cutting exercise . "To hell with saving the planet let's save money!" seems to be the watch cry now.


You and I can separate fruit and veg from meat but sadly many people can't, some people even seem to think ham is a vegetable. However, even in a vegetarian household you can't feed veg peelings to your livestock legally, because it seems perfectly legal to contaminate your veg with animal by-products.

As for the length of time it's taken sadly that seems normal. In the past we've spoken to various officials who's job it is to know the regs and even a few years after the regs were brought in the officials didn't have a clue. Someone's probably just been on a training course or has a new form to fill in.

I don't agree with the regs and processes but it's easy to see what may have happened.

Paul Sill



Joined: 16 Jan 2009
Posts: 118

PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 11 7:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

West Devon have a seperate collection for food waste, and cornwall are looking at this type of collection too. They provide a bin which you put all your food waste in they collect once a week and its taken to a biogas plant close-by. Sounds like a good idea, I compost as much as possible and try not to waste food but some times its hard not to even more so as we have a toddler!

maryf



Joined: 25 Oct 2009
Posts: 341
Location: suffolk
PostPosted: Sat Jun 11, 11 9:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

We Mid Suffolk/Babergh have to pay £40 a year for a brown bin, grass cuttings, hedge trimmings. veg peelings etc, but it's processed at a high temp composter thingy and then given away at specific sites on advertised dates throughout the two districts as "soil improver". Needless to say as I compost everything here, so don't do the £40 bin, I just turned up with a dozen sacks, a van, a son and two shovels at the give away event 2 miles away! I wished I'd been as greedy as some of the other "customers", as I've nearly used all that I got, yes I've picked out plastic, wire, stones, coal but otherwise it's fine!

I don't think some of the townies can distinguish what is compostable and just sling all "Garden waste" in, so that broken flowerpot, wrappings from a plant from the garden centre etc are indeed garden waste, must be OK!!!

Norwich now collects all waste food (cooked and raw) at the kerbside, but they are very fussy what goes in their general recycling bin, I visited their processing site last year - very interesting, but I feel they could do more.

I think I've mentioned it on here before, I have Green Cone for other rottable waste - cooked food, dog poo, but only actually put cooked poultry bones and poo in it as dogs and hens clear any of the rare leftovers!

Sherbs



Joined: 27 Apr 2007
Posts: 1931
Location: Swansea
PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 11 7:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

We have a food waste system with a little caddy to keep in the kitchen which we are supposed to put any and all food waste into, cooked or uncooked, vegetable or animal in origin.

Then we have a separate system of big white bags which we are supposed to use for garden waste like grass or hedge cuttings.

Kenworth



Joined: 04 Apr 2011
Posts: 855
Location: Michigan
PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 11 1:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

For Heavens sakes!!!! Bless your souls, I don't know how you folks can deal with all of the regulations your government comes up with!

OP



Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire
PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 11 5:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Sherbs wrote:
We have a food waste system with a little caddy to keep in the kitchen which we are supposed to put any and all food waste into, cooked or uncooked, vegetable or animal in origin.

Same here. It seems like a good system, although currently they only collect it every 2 weeks whereas they collect the inert waste weekly, which seems like the wrong way round.

What amazes me about all this is why every council seems to be doing its own thing and re-inventing the wheel. Why don't they talk to each other and come up with the best way to do it, and then all do the same way.

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