{"id":72033,"date":"2025-08-16T22:01:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/72033\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T22:01:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:01:20","slug":"new-household-food-waste-collections-delayed-by-two-years-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/72033\/","title":{"rendered":"New household food waste collections delayed by two years"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Pearson<\/p>\n

BBC Political Reporter, Hereford & Worcester<\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

By 31 March 2026, local authorities in England are required to introduce weekly food waste collections for most homes<\/p>\n

Delays to the rollout of new food waste bins for homes across Herefordshire and Worcestershire are leaving councils “behind the curve”, a Green councillor says.<\/p>\n

By law, local authorities across England are required to have a weekly food waste collection service in place by April 2026. The government has argued the move will reduce discarded food.<\/p>\n

However, complications with existing waste contracts and uncertainty over government funding mean no council in the two counties can currently commit to introducing the service on time.<\/p>\n

Wychavon District Council has become the latest council to write to ministers to say it will not meet the deadline. Instead, it says collections will start from April 2028.<\/p>\n

“I’m very frustrated about the wave of delays,” said Tor Pingree, a Green city councillor in Worcester.<\/p>\n

“At the moment all of our food waste\u2026 goes to the incinerator, it takes a lot of fuel to burn.”<\/p>\n

“Honestly, it’s surprising to me that we haven’t been collecting our food waste for a long time, many councils across the country are already doing it\u2026 we’re behind the curve on this one,” she said.<\/p>\n

At present, all councils in Herefordshire and Worcestershire collect black waste bins and green recycling bins on alternate weeks. <\/p>\n

New food waste collections – with new bins or caddies – would run alongside this, taking material to an anaerobic digester to be turned into biogas.<\/p>\n

\"Councillor<\/p>\n

Tor Pingree said food waste collections were a “fantastic idea” that should be have been introduced sooner<\/p>\n

“Food waste currently goes in your black bin\u2026 it amounts to 35% of that black bin,” said Conservative councillor Emma Stokes, a district councillor in Wychavon.<\/p>\n

“The idea is that by separating out, households will think more about what they’re actually throwing away,” she added.<\/p>\n

Yet, as Wychavon’s executive board member for resources, Councillor Stokes said she had decided to delay the district’s food waste collection service until April 2028.<\/p>\n

She said the move represented value for money for the taxpayer, and would prevent the council from breaching its current refuse collection contract.<\/p>\n

“We’ve just asked the government to bear with us for two years to keep the contract in place,” Stokes said.<\/p>\n

“We haven’t heard back from them.”<\/p>\n

Because of the government’s reorganisation of local government<\/a>, all of Worcestershire’s districts are due to be abolished on 1 April 2028.<\/p>\n

Stokes said she did not also want to tie in any successor local authority to a long-term waste contract.<\/p>\n

\"With<\/p>\n

Stephen Pain said England lagged behind other developed economies when it came to waste collections and recycling<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Worcestershire, Worcester City Council said its domestic food waste collection service would only be ready by Spring 2027.<\/p>\n

Bromsgrove, Redditch and Wyre Forest district councils said they were in discussions to form a joint food waste collection “as close as possible to the start of April 2026”.<\/p>\n

The three local authorities said the start date was dependent the purchase of new vehicles and food waste caddies.<\/p>\n

Malvern Hills District Council said it would deliver the new service in-house, but said it was waiting for confirmation on revenue funding from the government.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Herefordshire Council said it was still aiming to have food waste collections in place, but was unable to confirm a start date until grant funding from the government is confirmed.<\/p>\n

\"Jade<\/p>\n

Jade Churchill and Craig Betham both agreed separate food waste bins would be a “visual reminder” for residents<\/p>\n

On the streets of Worcester, many welcomed the upcoming introduction of a new food bin, but some were sceptical how many residents would embrace them.<\/p>\n

“I think having the option there is good for people,” said Craig Betham.<\/p>\n

“If the bin’s not there then people aren’t going to do it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Some people might do it\u2026 some people probably won’t do it,” said Jade Churchill.<\/p>\n

“For me, I tend to just want to save the food, so maybe I’ll use it for the next day, just so it doesn’t go to waste.”<\/p>\n

“Other people might do it to start with\u2026 I don’t think it will always be followed,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I’ve lived in several countries\u2026 I think other countries have better approaches,” said Stephen Pain.<\/p>\n

A former resident of Denmark and Japan, he said England had been “backwards” in not taking the step sooner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Pearson BBC Political Reporter, Hereford & Worcester BBC By 31 March 2026, local authorities in England are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-72033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}