Weekly household food collections returning to Preston and Lancashire

Potato peelings could soon go into a food waste caddy rather than main bins Pic: Pixabay

Home food waste collections are to resume in Preston more than a decade after they were halted.

Lancashire County Council is taking on the role of processing household food waste as part of national recycling reforms.

A previous scheme, operated by Preston City Council, was halted in 2015 after a decade as it was considered to be too costly to maintain. At the time the city council said picking up the food waste caddy bins was costing taxpayers more than £80,000-a-year.

Lancashire County Council’s scheme is due to be heard by councillors during a cabinet meeting on Thursday (18 January) it would then go out to district councils and unitary authorities on how the new bins would be collected and funding set up to support this.

A recycling plant at Farington Waste Recovery Park, near Leyland, is being upgraded to be able to handle processing the food waste.

The county council claim around 40,000 tonnes of food waste will be collected across the county and also say it will save £4.3m-a-year in how food waste is currently disposed of in the county.

A process called anaerobic digestion would be used at the waste recovery plant to recycle the food waste into electricity.

Weekly food waste collections would start from early 2026 and an initial investment of £2.5m would be put in to get the scheme up and running.

County councillor Shaun Turner, cabinet member for Environment and Climate Change at Lancashire County Council said: “Converting household waste into electricity will save £6.3m a year as well as reducing our carbon footprint.

“The government aims to roll this out nationally by spring 2026 and we plan to make the best use of the separately collected food waste using the facilities that we already have.

“Overall, our plans will save us money in the long run, whilst also being better for the environment.

“Food waste is currently collected fortnightly in with general rubbish in most areas, we hope that weekly collections will be a more appealing prospect for our residents.”

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