Almost 2,100 more homes set to be added to Exeter food waste rollout

Published: 3 March 2023

Nearly 2,100 more homes in Exeter are set to get kerbside collections of food waste from 13 March, the City Council has announced.

The areas of the city to benefit from the roll-out will be parts of Pinhoe, St Loyes and Whipton Barton.

Caddies and instructions will be delivered to properties next week (6 to 10 March).

More than 13,000 homes in the city are already part of the scheme. The roll-out began in 2021 and parts of Alphington, Beacon Heath, St Loyes, St Thomas, Cowick, Exwick and Pinhoe are now receiving regular weekly collections of their food waste.

Last month the City Council revealed the areas set to be added to the roll-out collections between March and the end of May. Twelve thousand properties will be added over the next three months, which will take the number to over 20,000 homes receiving food waste collections. The next areas (in order of introduction) will be:

• Parts of Stoke Hill and Pennsylvania area (2,477 properties)
• Parts of Heavitree and Polsloe (1,596 properties)
• Parts of St Thomas and Cowick (2,380 properties)
• Parts of St Leonards – first collections (2,071 properties)

Cllr Ruth Williams, Lead Councillor with responsibility for Recycling and Waste Management, said: “I’m delighted that we can keep adding properties to the roll-out and get more and more people in the city recycling their food waste.”

Households that are added to the scheme are contacted a week before their collections are due to start and handed instructions and caddies.

People have been asked to be patient with the roll-out, as more and more households are added to the scheme.  Cllr Williams has continued to stress: “The message is, please don’t contact us, we will contact you in plenty of time, explaining when your area is starting, how the scheme works and delivering your caddies.”

The initiative will continue to be gradually introduced across the whole of the city. Once complete it is expected that the city’s recycling rate will see a dramatic increase, as food waste is 38% of a typical black bin in Exeter, according to the latest analysis carried out in 2022.

Exeter City Council encourages people to only buy what they are likely to consume and is currently the best performing of all Devon’s district councils when it comes to producing the least amount of waste per head. This has decreased by a further 3kg per head in 2020/21 to 293kg per person.

However, adding a food waste collection service helps the planet and the battle against climate change by reducing carbon emissions, as well as increasing the city’s recycling rate.

Once collected, the food waste is sent off to be turned into soil improver while generating gas and electricity.

As part of the food waste collections, each household will receive a 23-litre kerbside caddy as well as a 5-litre kitchen caddy.

A dedicated page has been set up on the Council's website to deal with questions about the service, including how to line the caddy or bag up the food waste.

Dates for the rest of the city are still being looked at and will be clearly communicated with residents as the roll-out moves forward. People are being requested not to call the Council but to visit the website where a set of frequently asked questions is available.

To find out more information about food waste collections go to the City Council website at http://exeter.gov.uk/FoodWasteCollections