Portsmouth's food waste recycling could be doubled under new plans

Currently 8,000 homes in the city are part of a food waste recycling trial but proposals for Portsmouth City Council's capital budget allocate £221,000 to expand the current scheme.

Along with a further £365,000 of revenue funding proposed this will double the number of homes taking part in the scheme which will be extended until September 2021.

The spending plans could also give the council the opportunity to consider building a specialist anaerobic digestion plant, a project allocated up to £22.2m.

If built the site would process food waste, a move that can save money on transporting it to the site in Bournemouth that currently takes the city's food for recycling.

Councillor Dave Ashmore, cabinet member for environment & climate change, said: ‘Portsmouth's food waste trial has had fantastic results.

‘I'm delighted we're able to put forward proposals to keep it in place until September 2021 and double the number of homes involved and I hope other councillors back these plans.

‘Recycling is a big issue locally and nationally, residents are always asking us to do more and food waste is where we can make a really big difference, as it's food waste that makes up a huge amount of a lot of people's weekly rubbish collection.’

He added: ‘We've introduced carton recycling banks, extra glass/bottle banks and can hopefully expand this food waste trial.’

Councillor Steve Pitt, deputy leader of the council, said: ‘We're going to explore options for building our own plant that can take food waste.

‘This would save us the expense and environmental impact of sending everything to Bournemouth and potentially allow even more people to take part in this scheme.’

In four months of the trial, 265 tonnes of waste have been diverted to food waste recycling, meaning nearly 20 per cent of black bag refuse for the trial areas is now being recycled.

The proposed capital programme for 2020-21 will go before the council's cabinet for endorsement on February 4.