Food waste recycling

Weekly food waste recycling collections

We collect food waste for recycling every week from most homes in Aldershot and Farnborough.

Your caddies

Kitchen caddy

The silver five-litre caddy is to use in your kitchen. You can use liners to keep the caddy clean. Secure your food waste and transfer it into the larger outdoor caddy ready for collection. Your caddy is lockable, washable and dishwasher safe.

Outdoor caddy

Your black 23-litre caddy is to keep outside. This caddy is lockable to prevent pests getting into the food waste. You should put it out for collection every week, where you normally put your bins.

Marking your caddy with your house number and road name helps our crews, but also saves any mix-ups with your neighbours. You can buy low-cost address stickers for bins and caddies, or you can use any sort of labelling - even paint your address on the caddy. Please also try to bring your caddy in as soon as possible after it's been emptied.

Caddy liners

Liners help to keep your caddy clean and reduce smells. They also help to protect against pests, such as flies, once the food waste is inside.

You can also use newspaper or any small plastic bag to line your caddy. You can buy caddy liners from most supermarkets for a few pounds, or you can use any plastic bag that you might otherwise be throwing away. Vegetable, bread or salad bags work well. The bags do not need to be biodegradable.

What you can and can't put in your food waste caddy

Yes please

• Food scrapings and peelings
• Raw and cooked meat and fish, including bones
• Cheese
• Eggs and eggshells
• Rice and pasta
• Bread
• Teabags and coffee grounds
• Fruit and veg
• Pet food

It doesn't matter if the food is mouldy or out-of-date - it can all go in your food caddy.

No thank you

• Packaging like pots, tubs and trays
• Liquids like cooking oil, milk, drinks, liquid fat or gravy

Tips for food recycling at home

What happens to your food waste

We take your food waste to an anaerobic digestion facility, where the liners are removed and the food is broken down by micro-organisms in the absence of oxygen. A biogas is generated during the process which is used to create electricity and a digestate which is used as a nutrient-rich fertiliser.

Recycling and reducing your food waste

Around 70% of food wasted in the UK comes from households - which is more than six million tonnes of waste - so it's important we reduce our food waste as much as possible and compost or recycle the rest.

Saving food means saving money, but we also need to look at the bigger picture. Food waste is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, as it's not just the food we are wasting - it is the resources that have been used to produce the food too.

For more information about the impact of food waste on the planet and tips on how you reduce your food waste and save money, visit the Love Food Hate Waste and Wasting food: it's out of date websites.