Food Waste Collection Approved For Adur & Worthing

A new food waste collection service for Adur and Worthing has been given the green light. 

At a meeting of Adur and Worthing councils’ joint strategic committee on Wednesday, July 17, members agreed to a phased roll-out of the new food waste collection service, to be ready for all households by March 31, 2026.

Phase one will see a roll-out of 75 per cent of the anticipated service cost using diesel collection vehicles, and the rest to be rolled out in phase two subject to central government funding.

For businesses and other non-domestic premises, the service will need to be ready by March 31, 2025, and for micro firms/businesses by March 31, 2027, as per targets set by the central government.

A report to the committee said the changes would see the council adopt a ‘1-2-2’ collection model, meaning weekly food waste collection and fortnightly household refuse and recycling collections.

Households will get a seven-litre food waste bin for their kitchen and a 23-litre food waste bin to put on the kerbside for collection day, while residents of blocks of flats will get the seven-litre bin and a 140-litre communal food waste bin for collections.

The service is part of new central government requirements under the Simpler Recycling Scheme, with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) giving the councils an initial grant of £1,383,680 in February to fund the scheme.

Council officers said because of this, the councils would be rolling out the service to flats and high-density residential areas first, due to a general lack of space to compost food waste.

The councils wrote back to DEFRA in February, saying they were about £900,000 short of money needed to roll out the service, receiving a further £227,211 from the department in March – with the councils writing to DEFRA again as they said it was still not enough.

The service will see ten new 7.5-tonne collection vehicles purchased, with the report saying this would likely be a mix of eight diesel and two electric vehicles, as despite the environmental impact of diesels, EVs are twice their price – roughly £100,000 more for an EV, at £206,000.

About 30 new staff will be hired to operate the vehicles, and collection routes are to be revised with new software for more ‘efficient’ collection routes.

The estimated cost of bins is £110,390 for the kitchen bins, £196,650 for kerbside bins, and £20,000 for communal bins, totalling £327,040, with bins and vehicles expected to be ordered in October.

About £266,000 is also being sought from DEFRA for fleet depot improvements, including £6,000 for EV chargers. 

With this approach, the total cost of the roll out is estimated to be £1,851,040, with a predicted funding shortfall of £240,149, which will need to be sourced from central government.

Day-to-day funding from DEFRA for the service will be announced closer to March 31, 2026, which the report says ‘presents a risk’ to the councils due to uncertainty about funding.

Worthing Borough Council’s cabinet member for environmental services, Vicki Wells (Lab, Marine), said she was ‘disappointed’ they had to phase the roll out, and that the council would continue to promote ‘community composting’ in areas without the service in its initial phase.

She said:

“One of our regular complaints we get from residents is the smelly old bins not being collected. Well, that’s because there’s a bunch of rotting food in it and its important to remove it.

“The notion of purchasing diesel vehicles is quite uncomfortable, but given the financial climate I do understand the logic. I know we are doing everything we can to explore alternative fuel types.”

The report also said ‘subject to resources’ residents may also get a free roll of biodegradable kitchen bin bags for the seven-litre bins, which residents would then have to restock.

Alternatively, it added, people could use newspapers in place of the bags, or not use bags and wash the bin out regularly after emptying.