St Albans City & District Council is distributing food caddies to 50,000 homes in the district as part of its campaign to boost recycling.

Around 30% of household waste going to landfill is food waste.  Therefore we want to make it as easy as possible for people to recycle their food waste, rather than send it to landfill via their black bins.  We aim to get recycling up to 60% from our current 50% level.  If we can recycle more food waste, this will go a long way to meeting this target.

Tabletop-sized food caddies and a starter pack of 50 paper liners will be delivered to homes in the district by the end of August. Flats are not currently included, however the Council hopes to be able to extend the caddies to flats in the future. 

An explanatory information leaflet is also being distributed.  The caddies are designed to hold food waste, both cooked and raw, which can then be transferred to the green wheeled waste bins or bags for recycling.

Food waste will be treated with other green waste and turned into compost.

The Council is also collecting a range of additional plastics (yoghurt pots, margarine tubs, meat trays, fruit punnets, etc.,) as part of its recycling drive.  Not all areas have additional plastics collections yet but they will do by the end of September.  Residents are being informed as the new style collections reach their street.