Why separate your food waste?
Food is estimated to be responsible for around 30% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. And food waste is one of the most significant causes of those emissions making it a major contributor to the climate emergency
As it breaks down in landfill, food gives off methane – a greenhouse gas 25 times more damaging to the environment than CO₂. That’s why the Sustainable Restaurants Association (SRA) award an additional star
to members simply for having a separate food waste collection.
The benefits of separating food waste are not just environmental
Removing food waste from your general waste stream will have a significant effect on the amount you have to pay to dispose of it. Landfill tax means it now costs well over £100 per tonne to dispose of general waste in a landfill site whereas it
costs less than half of that to take food waste to an anaerobic digestion plant.
Food is typically the heaviest component of your general waste so separating it out will have an effect on your overall waste disposal costs.
Separating your food waste can also help you reduce operational costs
It is the first step in a food waste reduction strategy. By auditing and analysing the food waste they produce, many hospitality and food businesses have found they can reduce the amount they spend on ingredients by not wasting as much. It also reduces
waste disposal costs. Food waste is estimated to cost 38p per meal so tackling that could save the average business £10,000 per year. The UK’s Waste Resources Action Plan have some great ideas on how to do this.
You may worry that you don’t have space for extra bins to accommodate food waste but remember, you won’t be generating any extra waste. You can store the bins we supply outdoors and there are kitchen equipment suppliers offering hygienic spacing-saving
split bin solutions that can be easily employed. We can also provide collateral to engage and motivate your employees to welcome the changes.
Did you know that regulations in Scotland and Northern Ireland now make it an offence not to separate your food waste?
A truly national food waste collection service
We collect food waste from every imaginable organisation from major national restaurant chains to local chip shops, from luxury hotels to hospitals and prisons. Basically, if you generate food waste, we will collect it.
Our collections comply fully with all waste regulations. Your annual Duty of Care and Waste Transfer documentation will be provided by email (to save paper) and is included within our service charge unlike other companies who often charge an additional
fee.
Our drivers carry handheld smart devices which help streamline the process telling new drivers exactly where bins are and helping to optimise routes and ensure they are as efficient as possible.
Collections can be arranged for any frequency and we provide 120 litre, 180 litre and 240 litre bins free of charge as part of our contracts. Our customer service team can advise on an optimal solution to meet your needs and keep your costs down.
Wherever you are in the UK, you will find a local Olleco depot with a dedicated team servicing a large number of customers in your area. Not only does that mean that your food waste is creating local jobs, it also enables us to be more
agile in scheduling collections that meet your exact requirements. This unrivalled network gives us a real advantage over competitors with fewer depots and enables us to set up collections faster and more efficiently.
Our dedicated customer service team coordinates the work of the Food Waste Recovery Teams at each of our 14 UK depots ensuring you always get a local driver and only have a single number to call.
Because we utilise a network of licensed anaerobic digestion (AD) plants throughout the UK, we can minimise the distance your food waste has to travel. As well as reducing the carbon footprint of your waste, this also ensures that the energy it creates
is fed back into your local community and the organic fertiliser goes to local farms.
If your business produces more than 10 tonnes of food waste per week, you could benefit from our bulk food waste collection service.
Making more of the food waste we collect
All the food waste we collect is processed through anaerobic digestion facilities. Because
this process produces renewable energy as well as organic fertiliser, it delivers greenhouse gas savings that are six times higher than composting.
What could be more rewarding than knowing that your food waste is creating renewable biogas and electricity to make your premises more sustainable
and organic fertiliser to help grow the food you serve.
If our AD plants processed all the UK food and hospitality industry’s food waste, we could supply electricity to every home in Glasgow.