Free caddy liners scrapped to reduce waste and protect funds for vital services

FOOD recycling caddy liners will no longer be provided for free in a move to be more green and reduce waste while also helping save money for vital services.

Tameside Council has provided free compostable caddy liners since launching food waste recycling to support households to adapt to the change.

However, it is not necessary to use caddy liners and recycling food waste directly into the caddy and brown bin without a liner is the more environmentally friendly option as it further reduces waste as well as the carbon footprint of producing liners.

Additionally, the liners cost public funds nearly £170k a year, which is an unaffordable luxury in the current financial climate of sustained Government funding cuts and the need to make budget savings.

The council’s Executive Cabinet has agreed to stop providing the liners for free to help reduce waste and as part of wider service savings to help safeguard limited public funds to protect frontline services.

Households are strongly encouraged to continue to recycle their food waste – preferably by recycling waste food directly in their brown bin and/or caddy as the greener option. However, residents who wish to still use compostable caddy liners can buy them from most supermarkets and stores where they would normally buy their bin bags. People are asked to please not use newspaper or non-compostable bags such as recyclable/non-recyclable carrier bags to wrap their food waste as these are classed as contamination and would lead to whole wagon loads being rejected for recycling.

Tameside Council Executive Member responsible for environmental services Cllr Denise Ward said: “The collection of food waste is a well-established practice across households in Tameside now and, while the provision of free caddy liners initially helped to encourage people to change their habits and recycle their food waste, it is not absolutely essential to enable residents to continue recycling. Compostable caddy liners are easily available for people to buy along with their other bin bags but even compostable items do add to unnecessary waste so the greener option - and our preference -  is for people to simply put their food waste directly into their caddies and brown bins without using liners, as many people already do.

“While we realise some people may be disappointed with this decision and may find it inconvenient, I’m confident people will quickly adapt to recycling without caddy liners. Where they still want to use them, they are welcome to do so but they will need to buy them along with their other bin bags. We need residents to work with us to help us to reduce waste and look after the environment as well as achieve savings so we can continue to run services that matter most to people within our limited budget.

“As always my thanks goes to residents for recycling as much of their waste as possible, including their food waste. Recycling helps the environment and helps safeguard public funds for providing vital frontline services such as supporting vulnerable children and adults.”