Food waste to be processed out of county until 2028

Food waste will continue to be processed outside of Suffolk until 2028 while longer term solutions are considered, a waste manager has said.

Suffolk Waste Partnership currently sends its food waste to sites in March, Cambridgeshire and Halstead, Essex, which was announced as an interim solution when plans for a specialist facility in Reydon, near Southwold, fell through in June.

Rob Cole, manager of Suffolk Waste Partnership, said the interim arrangements had been planned long in advance of new waste rules coming into force on 1 June.

Cole said the partnership was now looking for other solutions beyond 2028.

He told BBC Radio Suffolk's Wayne Bavin that the team had known well in advance that the original plan wasn't going to happen.

Cole said: "We made different arrangements. Those arrangements are in place until 2028, and we're currently looking at other long term arrangements.

"So there's absolutely no problem at all.

"All your food waste is being processed appropriately, and people can have complete confidence in that."

Cole said, in the past three months, 6,500 tonnes of food waste had been collected in Suffolk, to be turned into biofuel to fuel homes and create biofertiliser for farm crops.

Changes to bin collections came into force on 1 June as part of government plans to simplify and standardise recycling. It meant households were required to separate recycling into additional bins.

In the weeks following the changes some people reported missed collections of their food waste which was put down to issues including a spike in sick leave for refuse collectors and a shortage of lorry drivers.

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