Food waste collection service
The council collects food waste from your home to turn into compost.
The food waste collection service is available for most residents currently eligible for the green box collection service. Food waste should be placed your food waste bin for collection outside your home. Just like the green box it is free and easy to use. Your food waste bin will be collected on the same day as your green box and refuse.
Find
your joint collection day by using the May Gurney (formerly ECT
Recycling) online database.
You can
request
a food waste bin online or telephone Ealing Council
Customer Services on (020) 8825 6000.
Your food waste bin must be out by 7am on your collection day at the front boundary of your property, but not on the pavement. If you are unable to carry your food waste bin to the front of your property you can arrange for an assisted collection.
Food waste accounts for 24% of household refuse in Ealing. By offering this service, the council can avoid potentially huge financial penalties in the coming years for sending biodegradable waste to landfill. If we do not take action now, these fines could run into the millions by 2010.
The sealable 21 litre food waste bin can be used for all biodegradable food waste including:
-
cooked and raw food
-
meat and fish (including bones)
vegetable and fruit peelings, egg shells (if you cannot compost at home) -
dairy products (for example cheese and yoghurt)
-
tea bags and coffee grounds
-
newspaper to wrap food waste
You cannot use the food waste bin for:
-
pet litter or faeces
-
any kind of packaging
-
plastic bags
-
other general waste
Your food waste bin cannot be emptied if any non-food waste items are found inside, although you may wrap your food wate in paper. This helps to stop waste sticking to the bin. Regularly cleaning your bin also helps prevent residue sticking. Your bin will not be emptied if plastic bags are used. Plastic cannot be composted and will contaminate the load. Food waste presented in biodegradable bags will not be accepted because our collectors will not be able to tell if it is fully biodegrabable to the composting standards. They do not have the time to carefully check them. Therefore, it is easier for all, to ban any bags and recommend wrapping parcels of food waste in newspaper. The bin has a sealable lid to prevent spills and smells and protects the contents from vermin such as foxes and rats.
If you already compost at home please do not stop. We would like to encourage you to carry on composting at home. However we are able to collect all meat, fish and bones using the food waste bin, which are items you may not like to put in with your compost. For more information please see composting.
For further information please contact Ealing Council Customer Services.