A key UK issue – managing municipal solid food waste: a case study from Hackney, London

The East London Community Recycling Partnership (ELCRP) food waste scheme serves 3 014 dwellings per week in the Borough of Hackney, London. Over the summer and autumn of 2006 it was estimated that on average 439 dwellings set out material every week (14.55%) diverting 1.1 tonnes of food waste into recycling per week. Further research indicates that the 3 014 dwellings produce an average of 11.73 tonnes of food waste per week. The ELCRP scheme is currently diverting about 10% of the food waste generated, into a recycling (composting) scheme. Participation rate (dwellings taking part once in a four week period) is estimated at about 24%. About 17% of dwellings served are regular participants (taking part two or more times in a four week period). The scheme performs at a similar level to some other London based food waste initiatives examined in recent Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP) research. Very significant performance improvements are required for the scheme to achieve recently set Hackney targets. We estimate that on average 3.89 kg of food waste is generated per dwelling per week by the 3 014 households served by the ELCRP scheme. If this estimate is correct, the best performing scheme reported in the recent WRAP study would still divert only 26% of food waste into recycling suggesting that there is a need for food waste schemes to implement systematic and imaginative campaigns to improve public participation.