‘Slim My Waste, Feed My Face’ Comes to Somerset

‘Slim My Waste, Feed My Face’ Comes to Somerset

Somerset County Council is set to spend £118,000 on stickers for people to put on their bins as part of the ‘Slim My Waste, Feed My Face’ campaign. The campaign aims to get people to keep food waste separate from non-recyclable waste.

As an extra incentive, residents who embrace the campaign and decorate their bins with the stickers they’re given will be in with a chance of winning a prize for the ‘best designed bin.’ All they have to do is share a picture of their bin on social media to be in with a shout.

The fun stickers include one that says ‘I’m on a no food diet,’ another that looks like bright yellow measuring tape, and a range of facial features to go on the brown waste bins.

Stickers are a good visual reminder

The Somerset Waste Partnership (SWP) says that reducing the amount of food waste that’s thrown away will both save money and help the environment. A spokesperson for the partnership said that the stickers are a good visual reminder for people to not put food waste in their black bin. She added that the partnership will be working with school and communities to educate people about food waste.

Around a quarter of the average bin is food waste

Around a quarter of the contents of the average bin in Somerset consists of food waste; mainly unopened food or leftovers. This situation is costly in terms of environmental damage and cost to the taxpayer. When food waste ends up in landfill, it decomposes very quickly and large amounts of methane and other gases are released into the atmosphere. In monetary terms, sending food waste to landfill costs the council £35 per tonne and this money could be far better spent on frontline services.

Previous success in Bristol

‘Slim My Waste, Feed My Face’ was originally launched by the Bristol Waste Company in 2017, and it significantly reduced the amount of waste being sent to landfill. The Somerset Waste Partnership hopes that its efforts will produce similar results.

It’s predicted that the amount of food waste being correctly sorted and recycled could increase by up to 12.5% as a result of the campaign.

As well as this campaign, another initiative is being rolled out in March next year. As part of the Recycle More campaign, more materials will be collected in kerbside collection and black bins will be collected once every week instead of the current fortnightly collection arrangements.

The partnership say that if people are recycling their food waste every week, they’ll have less waste in their black bins and they’ll find it easy to adapt to the new scheme.

The campaign is expected to cost around £283,000 in total - £118,000 for the design and production of the stickers and £126,000 for labour and delivery costs.