Mums in call for waste food bins
Petition urges introduction of household collections
A Horsham mum has argued the area should become a ‘leader’ when it comes to the collection of household food waste.
Lucy Holloway - with fellow mums Claire Lyon and Inga Geach - started a petition last year calling on Horsham District Council to provide a household food waste and composting service.
More than 1,000 people signed the petition, which has now been handed in at HDC’s offices.
Lucy, who has a two-yearold son and four-year-old daughter, felt it was important to act now to help reduce carbon emissions given last year’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
She said: “Every year counts, every action counts and unfortunately as much as we can do on a small scale we need councils to roll this out on a wider scale.”
The council said it and other authorities were working to put appropriate collection systems in place.
A Horsham mum has argued the area should become a ‘leader’ when it comes to the collection of household food waste.
Lucy Holloway, Claire Lyon and Inga Geach started a petition last year calling on Horsham District Council to provide a household food waste and composting service.
More than 1,000 people signed the petition, which was handed in at HDC’s offices last week.
Lucy, who has a twoyear-old son and four-yearold daughter, felt it was important to act now to help reduce carbon emissions given last year’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
She said: “Every year counts, every action counts and unfortunately as much as we can do on a small scale we need councils to roll this out on a wider scale.”
The council said it and other authorities were working with the county council to put appropriate collection systems and disposal infrastructure in place to enable the introduction of food waste collections, which needs to happen by 2023 in order to meet Government target dates.
But Lucy said: “Let’s be the leaders. Even though we are doing really well for recycling we need to decrease the pressure on landfill.”
At the moment the Biffa plant near Warnham processes food waste from black bag rubbish.
While households do need to reduce the amount of food they throw away in the first place, Lucy argued separate collections would be far more carbon efficient than the current arrangements.
She added: “28 per cent of our general waste is food.
“If that’s being taken out it reduces stress on landfill and it will mean we are not having to resort to drastic measures like incineration.”
She thanked Labour for its support and both Karen Park and Rosemary Couchman for helping collect signatures.
Carol Hayton, from the Horsham Labour Party, said: “It is clear from our conversations with local residents, that particularly in view of the council’s poorly thought out decision to reduce the general waste collection to once a fortnight, people are keen to benefit from this recycling service, which is available in many areas across the country.”
She suggested it would not only help with problems experienced over the summer with maggots and flies but also reduce the impact on the environment.