Edinburgh food waste collection is a good start

Commenting on the Scottish Government’s announcement today (13 September) of £1.3m funding to support food waste collections in Edinburgh, Stan Blackley, Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said:

“Research published today by Friends of the Earth has revealed that the overwhelming majority of those who already have food waste bins at home don’t have any problem with them.

“The research also shows that more than 80% of people who get food waste collections say that they are no trouble, and they also agree that food waste collections should be provided by all local authorities. This is a welcome start from the Scottish Government, which should now provide additional funding to ensure these collections can be rolled out across all of Scotland.

“Collecting food waste is good news for both the environment and the economy. At the moment we continue to waste far too much perfectly good food by throwing it in the bin, and we fail to make best use of the resource that is food scraps, peeling and leftovers, which can be turned into compost or electricity.

“Food prices are continuing to rise, and consumers can save money by buying only the food that they require, reducing the amount of food that they waste, and learning to make better use of the food that they have, including re-using leftovers.”

ENDS

For media enquiries, please contact: Per Fischer, Press Office, Friends of the Earth Scotland
 t: 0131 243 2719

Notes to Editors

The ‘Storm in a Slop Bucket’ survey was commissioned by Friends of the Earth and carried out by Resource Futures, who interviewed 1,056 urban and rural English households with and without kerbside food waste collections.
 www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/storm_slop_bucket.pdf

Key findings:

69% disagree with the statement ‘food waste collections cause nuisance’ 76% say all councils should provide food waste collections 63% disagree with the statement ‘food waste collections are unnecessary’  81% believe food waste collections are good for the environment

Friends of the Earth Scotland is
* Scotland’s leading environmental campaigning organisation
* An independent Scottish charity with a network of thousands of supporters and active local groups across Scotland
* Part of the largest grassroots environmental network in the world, uniting over 2 million supporters, 77 national member groups, and some 5,000 local activist groups – covering every continent.
www.foe-scotland.org.uk