Food waste is collected every week.

• What bins do I put my kitchen waste in?

  You can put your waste into a silver caddy (5 litres) that you keep in your kitchen and a green food bin (23 litres) to keep outside.You can use your caddy to conveniently scrape away food waste and when it is full or when you no longer want it in your kitchen, you can transfer this to your outside bin. The outside bin is collected once a week on your normal collection day.
  
  

• |How do I use my kitchen caddy and how do I line it?
  
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• |What do I put in my kitchen caddy and food waste bin?

  
  

• |Report a missed collection
  
  

• What day is my collection?

  Use our |My Elmbridge feature to find out your collection day. Simply enter your postcode or address and select the "My House" tab to identify your collection day details.
  
  

• Do you collect from flats?

  A small number of flats receive the food waste service. Properties that are not receiving the service will continue to receive a weekly refuse collection. We're keen to make the food waste service available to every household in the future and we will be considering alternatives for the remaining flats in 2010.
  
  

• Find out more

  |Contact the Environmental Care Team with any queries or visit our |Frequently Asked Questions
  
  

Top Tips

• Keep your outside food bin out of direct sunlight
• If dirty rinse your food bins out with old dishwater
• Wrap messy or smelly food waste and place straight in to your outside food bin
• Always wash your hands and work surfaces after handling waste.

|Food Waste Video
If you are an Elmbridge resident and would like to know more about the new food recycling collection service, |please see the three-minute film online.

Why is the Council collecting food waste?|

The average household bin contains about 40% food waste. By collecting it separately and recycling it, we can prevent it from being buried in landfill sites. When buried under all the other waste in a landfill site, the rotting food decomposes without oxygen and generates large amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Collected food is composted and turned into a fertiliser for bio fuel crops. We throw away a third of all the food we buy.

Find out how you can |reduce the amount of food waste you produce.