By Will Nichols, Source: BusinessGreen

A food waste recycling service for central London businesses has diverted 100 tonnes of organic waste from landfill in its first eight months of operation and is now poised to expand south of the capital.

Around 100 small companies, including restaurants, offices and retailers, have signed up to First Mile’s daily collection service since the company launched in April and chief executive Bruce Bratley expects the number of participants “should pick up as we go through 2013”.

By 2014, First Mile expects to have reduced CO2 emissions by an estimated 579 tonnes and diverted 1,000 tonnes of food waste from landfill.

The service allows businesses to order pre-paid food sacks and arrange a collection time. First Mile delivers sacks and caddies the next day and starts collecting the food immediately from the kerbside or store rooms.

“Food waste collections improve recycling rates for customers but also improve the quality of the other recycled materials,” Bratley told BusinessGreen. “Most [customers] have daily collections – asking them to store food waste longer than [waste] paper is illogical.”

The UK currently throws out an estimated £12bn worth of food every year, according to the government-backed Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which has provided funding for the First Mile service.

Several large retailers, including Marks & Spencer and Waitrose, use food waste to generate energy either for the grid or to supply their own stores, while campaigners have led calls to ban sending food waste to landfill.

Material collected by First Mile is sent to transfer stations just outside London before being shipped to plants in Kent and Bedfordshire.

Bratley hopes some of the new anaerobic digestion plants being planned within the M25 will mean the waste can be treated locally. “There are some new facilities coming online and we’re talking to a few of them,” he said.

First Mile’s fleet of 35 trucks, which also conduct standard collections, now have a separate compartment for food waste, while the company also operates one dedicated food waste vehicle.

Bratley said by 2014 the company intends to have at least four dedicated food-waste collection trucks in London alone.

First Mile also has non-food waste collection customers in 20 cities across the UK, and Bratley expects to expand the scheme in and around the capital.

“The rollout plan is open-ended,” he said. “There’s so much material in London we’re here for the foreseeable. But [locations such as] Woking, Guildford and Sutton are good places for us to expand into.”