BASILDON'S new separate food and garden waste collections service will start on Monday, 3 October,

Unless residents live in a home that doesn't currently receive a food and garden waste collection service, they should have received a 5-litre kitchen caddy and a 23-litre outdoor caddy, plus 50 kitchen caddy liners.

Food waste will be collected on a weekly basis, with garden waste will now be collected fortnightly from your usual point on the same day as glass recycling collections.

The new 5 litre indoor caddy is for the kitchen to put all food waste in such as plate scrapings and fruit and vegetable peelings into ready to be recycled. Once it's full, residents will need to transfer the food waste to their outdoor 23 litre caddy, which has a lockable lid to keep it closed and to stop animals getting to it. Residents will need to place their 23-litre outdoor caddy out on a weekly basis from their usual collection point.

Cabinet Member for Environment and Carbon Reduction, Councillor Kevin Blake said: "I'm excited for the roll out of our separate food and garden waste service to see how much it improves our borough's recycling rate.

"Currently 36% of what goes in our black sacks is food waste – this needs to change. We hope with this service improvement and our new convenient food bins, that residents are more encouraged to do the right thing and recycle their food waste.

"I've seen a lot of support from residents for the changes and over 7000 residents responded to our consultation regarding them, so I really hope residents support the service to make sure it has the positive environment impact it can."

The council says its separated service should increase food recycling and reduce the amount of food waste currently found in black sacks - helping to make the council's operations carbon net-zero by 2030, and for the borough to become carbon net-zero by 2050.

If residents have not received a caddy delivery, contact the Waste and Recycling team at: [email protected]

For a full list of FAQ's and everything you need to know about the service including a video demonstration of how the new bins work, visit: www.basildon.gov.uk/foodandgarden