At last, Slough householders are beginning to get what has been missing for years in the borough’s waste collection offer – a weekly food recycling service – and our trial is going well!

Slough began the phased introduction of weekly food waste collections a month ago. Already in our five trial areas we are achieving the same level of recycling as with the rest of our waste collection service – about 25 per cent.

We are confident that as residents regularise their use of our food caddies – and we roll this out across the rest of the borough – our recycling rates are going to get up to achieving the national target for waste recycling of between 40 and 50 per cent per year.

I know Slough residents have got used to making do without – maybe using food digesters in their gardens – but using their new food recycling caddies are cleaner and more environmentally friendly.

Slough’s present 25 per cent recycling rate is poor to be frank. The absence of a food waste collection service is why last year’s switch to fortnightly bin collections encountered so many problems – with heavy, wet and rotting food waste filling up a big part of our grey general waste bins and causing contamination across all waste streams.

As a new administration coming into office last year, on the back of the 2021 Council bankruptcy, we had no alternative but to implement the move to fortnightly bin collections that we inherited as a savings measure.

Actually the 2021 Environment Act said all councils should move to fortnightly collection of general waste and dry recycling, with weekly food waste collections – the national model – by 2026, in order to help them reach higher recycling rates.

We made the best of what we had – we’ve now gone further. I would like to praise council officers and waste collection staff, working with our recycling and disposal contactors, Grundon, who have come up with a great plan to help Slough recycle more – a real value for money service going forward.