Food waste collections will be rolled out to flats in Bracknell after a delay.

The collection of food waste was rolled out to regular households in March this year.

The recycling typically involves putting food waste in a dedicated bin in a kitchen with a biodegradable bag, then putting those bags in a small kerbside bin to be collected on a weekly basis.

But food waste collection has not been rolled out to flats in Bracknell Forest yet because of the difficulties of managing food waste from multiple households.

READ MORE: Will flats be affected by Bracknell Forest's food waste and non-recycling bin changes?

A panel of councillors conducted an investigation into which flats are suitable for food waste collection.

Now the results have been delivered, with plans to roll out food waste collections for up to 1,800 flats and apartments (20 per cent of those in the borough), with council officers responsible for identifying suitable flats and handing out individual kerbside caddies so the food waste can be collected.

If individual kerbside caddies are not suitable, any bins for food waste should have aperture holes in them to minimise contamination.

The panel also recommended maintaining communication with people in flats to identify which ones will be ready for food waste collection when collections are expanded.

Finally, the panel recommended any new Homes of Multiple Occupation (HMO) and HMO licence renewals will have a mandatory condition which governs how food waste should be disposed of, with any breaches being subject to enforcement by the council’s Environmental Health team.

Bracknell News: Food waste bins for kerbside collection. Now the expansion to flats has been approved, council officers will now identify flats which are suitable to accept the caddies so the occupants can recycle their food waste.Food waste bins for kerbside collection. Now the expansion to flats has been approved, council officers will now identify flats which are suitable to accept the caddies so the occupants can recycle their food waste.

According to the council’s website, it was hoping to add food waste collection for flats and homes with communal bins by this autumn. But the panel has now recommended that the food waste collections be implemented by spring next year instead.

The review of food waste collection in flats was conducted by Bracknell Forest Council’s environment overview and scrutiny panel.

All of the panel’s recommendations were approved unanimously by the council’s executive committee yesterday (Tuesday, September 21). You can view tweets from the meeting here: 

It now means a sixth food waste recycling vehicle will be bought to collect the extra food waste.

The review was presented by panel chairman Councillor John Porter (Conservative, Owlsmoor).

Cllr Dorothy Hayes MBE (Conservative, Ascot), the executive member for the environment praised the review.

Cllr Hayes said: “What matters is that we get moving with this.

“This is an important move, having done food waste collections so successfully in regular households, now we can take on the task of expanding it to apartments.

“We need to get the ball rolling. Our residents are really on board.”