A man returning from a dog walk found food waste collection caddies sprawled all over the street by waste collectors.

Sixty-six-year-old Jeff Andrew, who lives in Glory Farm, Bicester, noticed that upon returning from walking his dog there were food waste collection bins strewn around the street he lives on.

Mr Andrew said: “The food waste collection scheme is a great initiative; any form of recycling is good in my view.

“I think the caddies being thrown back towards properties, rather than returned properly, could be the result of bin men being under immense time pressure.

“I saw that lots of the bins had just been thrown all over the street. Some were under cars and vans, mine was in my neighbour’s garden.

“My concern is that if they continue to be chucked around like this they will break. Then when they become useless and cracked, they will attract flies and other animals.

“In the end people will just stop using them, and that would be a shame.”

From March 1 this year, Cherwell District Council began collecting food waste from the kerbside once a week instead of fortnightly.

The new 23-litre outdoor food waste caddies were delivered across the district in phases.

People were notified of their delivery date by hangers fixed to the handles of their other bins.

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A spokesperson for Cherwell District Council said: “All of our crews are trained to carefully put the silver caddies back and we have had very few complaints of this nature.

“Anyone who does have concerns is welcome to contact the council and we will ensure they are followed up on.

“Tens of thousands of people across the district are using their silver caddies, helping us collect over 100 tonnes of food waste every week.

“Last week we collected 124 tonnes, which is a new record for the food waste service.

“We are grateful for the hard work of our crews and the help of our residents in achieving this.”

The collected food waste is taken to an anaerobic digester where it is broken down by bacteria, as it would be in the stomach.

The digester turns the food waste into two resources, bio-fertilisers that help farmers enrich the UK’s soils and green electricity to power homes and businesses.

Electricity generated by food waste collected from Cherwell households could run 9,000 fridge-freezers, or power a TV in every household in the district for 15 hours a week.

 

Read more from this author

This story was written by Matthew Norman, he joined the team in 2022 as a Facebook community reporter.

Matthew covers Bicester and focuses on finding stories from diverse communities.

Get in touch with him by emailing: Matthew.norman@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @OxMailMattN1

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