Councillors make decision on the future of 1-2-3 Food Waste trial
The future of the 1-2-3 Food Waste trial was decided by councillors at a meeting of the Environment Committee, confirming an end date of September 2022.
Arun District Council, in partnership with West Sussex County Council (WSCC), rolled out the ‘1-2-3 collections trial, which was due to run for one year, in May 2021. Approximately 1200 households in Littlehampton took part in the trial which was funded by an allocation of ‘improvement funding’ from West Sussex County Council (WSCC).
In January 2022 following the success of the trial, the Environment Committee agreed to continue the 1-2-3 collections trial from May 2022 until February 2023, (when the current combined cleansing services contract is due to expire).
On 19 May the council’s Environment Committee resolved to retain, for the time being, a weekly residual rubbish collection without a separate food waste collection.
Following this decision, the joint project board reluctantly concluded there was limited value in continuing to fund 1-2-3 collections in the trial area from 30 June 2022 which has triggered the withdrawal of WSCC funding.
At a meeting of the of the Environment committee on 14 July 2022, councillors debated and agreed the recommendation that 1-2-3 collections to residents will be withdrawn from the end of September 2022 and remaining collection costs (between the end of June and end of September 2022) will be funded from existing budgets.
Cllr David Edwards, Environment Committee Chair said:
“On behalf of Arun District Council and West Sussex County Council I want to thank the residents for taking part in the 1-2-3 collection trial. It has been a great success and they embraced and adapted to the changes to collections which saw a significant amount of food waste being diverted from residual rubbish and an increase in recycling rates. The vast majority of residents were satisfied with the collections, and more than 85% of residents participated.
“Thanks to those residents, sufficient evidence was gathered to support a 1-2-3 collection system where food waste is collected weekly, recycling fortnightly, and residual rubbish every three weeks. This valuable data can be used in the future for the roll-out of separate food waste collections, not only across Arun but for all West Sussex.”
WSCC will continue to cover the costs for recycling and disposal during the winding down period. Residents in the trial area will be contacted in due course by Arun District Council about the changes to their collections.