Labour are committed to rolling out the Food Waste Collection service across the city. Despite shortages of vehicles and drivers we are pleased to be able to continue its roll out. Over a thousand properties were in the first phase in Alphinton, Since then , properties in parts of Beacon Heath, Pinhoe, St Loyes, St Thomas, Exwick have been added  ar and new areas are now being added to the roll out taking the mid-March total to over 12,000. Further roll-out up to the end of May will take the number to over 20.000 which is a third of Exeter homes. The next areas to be included in the March-May rollout will be:

• Parts of Stoke Hill and Pennsylvania area (2,477 properties)
• Parts of Heavitree and Polsloe (1,596 properties)
• Parts of St Thomas and Cowick (2,380 properties)
• Parts of St Leonards – first collections (2,071 properties)

Households that are added to the scheme are contacted a week before their collection is due to start and handed instructions and caddies.

Cllr Ruth Williams, Lead Councillor with responsibility for Recycling and Waste Management, said:

“This is great news. We’re now starting to gain momentum and adding more and more properties to the scheme.”

“When you carry out a scheme like this there are always going to be challenges, so it is great to be taking these significant strides forward towards delivering a food waste collection service for the whole of Exeter.”

“Moving forward, the rate of the roll-out is dependent on the availability of special food collection vehicles, drivers and domestic food waste containers, as well as expansion of capacity to hold waste at our site at Exton Road prior to transportation for anaerobic digestion.”

“Again, I’d like thank people across the city for being patient with us for this and we will be in touch about when your street is about to be added to the roll-out. In the meantime, please don’t contact our staff unless you really need to – all the information will be put on our website.”

Other areas will be added to the roll-out as and when vehicles, drivers and containers are available and this will be dependent on the supply chain which is currently an issue across the UK.

Exeter is currently the best performing of all Devon’s district councils when it comes to producing the least amount of waste per head. This has decreased by a further 3kg per head in 2020/21 to 293kg per person. The Council also has a leading material reclamation facility which enables us to recycle a wider range of materials than most council. The only thing we have had missing was the ability to recycle food and that’s changing as more and more areas are added to the Food Waste Collection service.

The food collected is recycled in an anaerobic digestor in Devon where it is turned into an organic soil-improver while generating gas and electricity helping reduce the use of fossil fuels. Using anaerobic digestion rather than incineration of food waste also helps with our 2023 Net zero target as it reduces the City’s carbon emissions.

We are determined to build on the great work done at the recycling centre and continue to roll out this service across the city.

First published  04/02/23 updated 12/03/23