The decision was made during a meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday (July 5).
Just over 50 per cent of local authorities in the UK provide such a service to their residents – and those that do, on average, have much higher recycling rates than those who do not.
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A council spokesman said: “We want to make recycling as easy as possible for people and are working hard to investigate and plan for the introduction of a food waste recycling service for our residents.
Example of food waste caddy
“As part of this, we have been in discussions with West Sussex County Council about the time-lines within which they can offer food waste disposal, and have been working closely with the West Sussex Waste Partnership to discuss feasibility around procurement of food waste collection vehicles.
“While the Government is still considering the deadline for when local authorities need to have domestic kerbside food waste collections in place, we anticipate that this may be 2024/25 based on the information that we have been given at this stage.”
The spokesman said the council wanted to be ‘as prepared as possible’ to deliver the service, hence the need to pay for more research into the scheme.
They added: “This will include identifying the latest costs associated with the delivery of this service, including equipment such as vehicles and food waste bins.
“We currently offer a commercial food recycling scheme for businesses in the district, and have recently introduced new recycling trials and schemes to help and encourage households to recycle as much of their waste as possible.”
In 2019, consultants Eunomia conducted a full costed review for food collection and disposal across all seven districts and boroughs in West Sussex, on behalf of the county council.
The funding approved by the cabinet will allow that review to be updated using current data to work out the current costs.
On top of that, plans will be drawn up outlining the various ways the scheme could be delivered, what is required from WSCC when it comes to disposal of the food waste, and possible ways to improve on the current food waste collections.
A formal report is expected to be ready for scrutiny in September/October 2023.
