City to start food waste collections

3:40pm Thursday 24th January 2008

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Thousands of Oxford residents will see a partial return to weekly waste collections, with food scraps collected from April.

A scheme to collect food and green waste from more 6,500 properties spread across the city is expected to be agreed by city councillors on Monday.

The pilot scheme is estimated to cost more than £160,000 and will be focused primarily on homes east of Magdalen Bridge.

However, the scheme will not spell the death knell of the controversial fortnightly residual waste rounds.

Faced with continued anger over the introduction of alternate waste collections, the council said it wanted to start collecting kitchen waste ahead of the rest of the county.

With a food treatment plant not likely to be built before April 2009, more than 10 per cent of Oxford's residents will benefit from a scheme a year early.

But it will mean large quantities of waste having to be carried by road, probably to a plant in Bedfordshire.

Jean Fooks, executive member for a cleaner city, said: "The stuff most people are bothered about is food waste.

"Some people manage but having to store it for a fortnight is something that presents some people with problems. Collecting it weekly will reassure people that we are listening to what they tell us they want.

"At the moment a lot of food waste is going into landfill."

Some people have claimed that the lack of weekly collections has led to a rise in the number of rats in the city.

Food waste from Oxford will probably be sent to an anaerobic digestion plant, which produces bio-gas which is used to generate electricity.

It is understood the city council will be investing £95,000, with the balance coming from the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership.