We will be introducing weekly food waste collections for houses and flats in Bedford Borough from Monday 30 March 2026.
This gives every household an easy way to recycle out-of-date food, leftovers and scraps instead of putting them in the black bin.
By reusing everyday plastic bags and paper to line kitchen caddies, you can keep things clean and simple while helping cut waste, save money and protect the environment.
Collections will be weekly, so food waste is taken away regularly and does not sit for long periods in your black-lidded bin.
Food waste will be turned into useful products, such as renewable energy and fertiliser, instead of being incinerated or buried in landfill.
Food caddies will be delivered to all homes by Monday 30 March with instructions of how to use them. Please keep them safe and don’t start using them until a week before your first collection.
Your bin collection day may be changing, we will be posting an update to all affected addresses soon.
If you live in a house or bungalow, you will receive two containers:
The smaller caddy is for day‑to‑day use in the kitchen and should then be emptied into the outdoor bin ready for collection.
Place your larger food waste bin where you usually leave your other bins by 6am on their collection day for our teams to pick up each week. Be aware that it may be emptied at a different time of day to your other bins.
If you need a replacement food waste bin or kitchen caddy in future, there will be a way to request it on our website.
If you live in a flat with your own wheelie bins, you will also receive both these caddies. Your larger caddy should be left at the edge of your property (closest to the highway) by 6am on your collection day and brought back on to your property as soon as possible after collection.
If you live in a block of flats with shared bins, then you will only receive the smaller caddy for your kitchen. You will then use this to transfer your food waste to the large communal food bin in the bin store, where the other bins that you use for your recycling and waste are kept.
Food waste collections are designed to take most everyday food, including items that cannot be composted at home.
Unlike many areas that only allow compostable liners or newspaper, Bedford Borough residents can line their kitchen caddies with any plastic bags or newspaper, making the service easy to use and helping to reuse materials that might otherwise be thrown away.
If you prefer, you don’t have to line your caddie - just give it a rinse after it’s been emptied.
Examples of suitable liners include:
Any plastic or paper bag and newspaper is removed at the recycling facility before the food waste is processed.
Food waste makes up a large share of what is currently thrown away in household rubbish bins, and collecting it separately has delivered big benefits in other areas. Councils elsewhere have seen increases in food recycling of around 20% and significant savings on disposal costs.
By using your food waste caddy you will help to:
Every peel, crust and leftover adds up; other areas have shown that small changes in everyday habits can deliver large environmental and financial benefits – families quickly see how much food waste they are creating and how much money it represents.
Please visit our business waste and recycling webpages for information about waste and recycling services for businesses, including commercial food waste and recycling collections.
From Wednesday 1 April 2026, councils in England are legally required to provide weekly food waste collections from all households as part of new requirements under the Environment Act 2021.
Bedford Borough is introducing this service to meet that duty and improve local recycling. Collecting food waste separately helps to recovers energy and nutrients from what we throw away.
The food waste service is government funded, so there are national resources to help us manage the introduction of this service.
We will deliver a small 7 litre (22cmx23cm at the top and 20cm deep) kitchen food caddy for your kitchen, and a 23 litre (35cmx35cm at the top and 45cm deep) outdoor food waste bin. We will collect the outdoor food waste bin weekly in the same way as your other bins.
Some flats will only receive the small kitchen caddy and will have other arrangements for food waste collection, such as a communal food waste bin – this is a small, silver-lidded wheelie bin and will be found with other communal bins.
Food caddies are being sent out between January and the end of March. If your neighbours have received their caddy and you think you’ve been missed please report this online
You can start using your caddies a week before the collection service begins on Monday 30 March 2026.
If you live in a flat, you will receive a small kitchen caddy.
How you recycle your food waste will depend on where you live. Some flats will also receive a larger outdoor food waste bin collected weekly from the roadside. Others will use a communal food waste bin (a small silver-lidded wheelie bin) found with existing shared bins, or a nearby food waste collection point.
All bins will be clearly labelled, and we will confirm locations and collection details before the service starts on Monday 30 March.
No. Only the large outdoor food waste bin will be collected by our crews. The small caddy is designed for use inside the home to collect scraps before emptying into the larger bin.
Yes. You can use any container you prefer to collect food waste indoors - for example, an old ice cream tub, a small bucket, or another type of kitchen container.
However, please keep the small caddy we provided, as it may be useful in future if your circumstances change or if you wish to use it later on.
Lots of people have been surprised at how much food waste they create when they start using a caddy. Even small amounts of food, such as banana skins, crusts of bread, and tea bags all add up and can help us all to improve our recycling rate.
We encourage everyone to try using the bins for at least a couple of months to see how they get on.
It’s fantastic that you are reducing your food waste in this way. If you have food waste that is not suitable for your compost bin, such as cooked foods and pet food, or food that can be unsuitable for pets, such as grapes, off meat, chocolate, and mouldy/decaying food, please make the most of your kerbside food waste collection service.
If you want to reduce your food waste , and the amount you are spending on food that is just thrown away, head to Love Food Hate Waste for tips and inspiration: www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
Residents will be strongly encouraged to participate, as evidence from other councils shows that making use of the service delivers environmental benefits and cost savings for the whole community.
Keeping your kitchen caddy near to where you prepare food makes it really easy to drop in any food waste.
Some people prefer to keep it near their bin where they previously were putting their food waste. Others prefer to keep it near the kitchen sink, so leftovers can be scraped off before plates are washed. You’ll soon be used to taking your food waste to your outdoor caddy.
Government guidance for England says councils must offer every household a food waste collection and provide appropriate containers to do so.
If you do not plan to use the service right away, you should keep your caddies somewhere safe, so they are available if your circumstances change in future.
If you prefer to use something else in your kitchen to collect food waste before transferring it to your larger outdoor caddy, then please do so.
There is a wide range of shapes and sizes of internal food waste caddies available on the market if you need something different.
Using a small, lidded caddy indoors and emptying it regularly into your outdoor food waste bin for a weekly collection, will keep smells to a minimum.
Using a bag or newspaper liner, and closing the lid properly, keeps the food locked in, and residents in other areas report that separating food waste actually makes their main rubbish bin less smelly.
You can give your caddies a quick rinse with water if they need a clean, although using a liner will reduce the need for this.
Yes. Bedford Borough’s system will follow the model used successfully by councils such as West Northamptonshire, Devon and West Oxfordshire, where any plastic or paper bag can be used to line the caddy.
At the processing plant, bags are removed by the contractor before the food waste is treated, so the bags are not composted, but the food can still be recycled into energy and fertiliser.
Food waste liners can be tied or left untied, if you do tie them, please use a knot or clear tape.
Where possible, please remove packaging from spoiled or out-of-date food before putting it into your caddy.
However, if the food is in a plastic bag that the crew can see through, without other packaging, it can go in your food waste caddy for collection.
All plastic bags are removed as part of the recycling process at Biogen’s facility before the food waste is treated.
Food waste collected in Bedford Borough is treated using special machines at Biogen’s facility. These machines spin to pull the food away from the packaging. The heavy food is separated from the lighter packaging at the very start, and most packaging is removed straight away.
After the food is treated, the leftover material, called digestate, is checked again. Anything bigger than 2mm, such as small bits of plastic or packaging, is taken out.
All digestate produced meets PAS110 standards. These are the highest quality rules set by the government to make sure the material is safe to spread on farmland. The operator regularly tests the digestate to check it is clean and safe. Only digestate that passes these strict checks is used on fields.
The separated materials - including any plastic bags - are then sent to local disposal facilities through Biogen’s partnership with Veolia.
The separated materials are transferred to approved waste treatment facilities. Biogen currently sends this material to Veolia’s treatment facility at Ling Hall, Warwickshire, but it is actively seeking to divert more of it to energy recovery facilities wherever possible.
It is better for the environment to reuse bags you already have than to buy new ones.
Good options include empty bread bags, cereal bags, salad bags, frozen vegetable bags, large crisp packets and other food packaging that can be tied shut.
Old lightweight carrier bags, pedal bin liners and similar thin bags are also suitable if you already have them, while “bags for life” should be kept for repeated shopping use.
Yes. If you prefer, you can use certified compostable liners in your kitchen caddy. However, please be aware that any plastic bags are removed at the recycling facility before the food waste is processed.
While residents are welcome to use compostable liners if they prefer, there is no significant environmental advantage in this case. Compostable bags are also removed during the de-packaging stage, as they do not break down quickly enough for the anaerobic digestion process.
This means both plastic and compostable liners end up being handled in the same way after sorting.
If your liner splits, you can carefully tip the contents of your internal caddy into your outdoor food waste bin and then put the damaged bag in your black bin.
Experience from other areas in the country shows that using a robust outdoor food waste bin with a secure lid and locking handle helps to deter animals. Placing the bin out for collection on the correct day and not overfilling it will further reduce any risk of pests or spillage.
As your food caddy will be collected weekly, rather than with the fortnightly general waste as before, this will reduce the time the food sits in your bin, also reducing the potential for smells.
Your food waste will be collected each week. Just leave your larger caddy where you normally leave your bins for our crews to collect.
Updated collection calendars will be available on our website before the service starts, so you can quickly check your collection day.
In line with other UK councils, Bedford Borough’s collected food waste will be sent to a specialist facility where it can be turned into renewable energy and a nutrient‑rich fertiliser through processes such as anaerobic digestion. This means your unwanted food helps power homes and support agriculture instead of being incinerated.
Anaerobic digestion is a process that uses microorganisms to break down food waste in the absence of oxygen, inside an enclosed system. As it breaks down it gives off methane, which is collected and converted into biogas and used to generate electricity, heat or transport fuels. It also creates a nutrient-rich digestate that can be used as a fertiliser for agriculture and in land regeneration.
Yes. The environmental impact has been carefully considered.
While there is a carbon cost associated with running additional collection vehicles, this is outweighed by the environmental benefits of recycling food waste rather than sending it to incineration.
Recycling food waste allows it to be turned into renewable energy and nutrient-rich digestate for use in agriculture, helping to reduce carbon emissions overall.
Only one of each caddy type (the small kitchen caddy and the large outdoor food bin) will be provided per household, flats with communal food waste collections will only receive the small kitchen caddy.
If you are finding that your food caddy is filling up too quickly, it may be a good time to explore ways to reduce the amount of food you waste. We can help with practical tips and guidance so that you are only buying and cooking what you need.
Some simple ways to reduce food waste include:
Visit Love Food Hate Waste for more advice on reducing food waste.
No - all food waste must be placed in the outdoor food caddy for collection.
Fruit stones do not break down easily in the treatment process, so we would prefer these not to go in the food waste bin where possible.
However, we understand small amounts will occasionally be included and the treatment process can manage these when they arrive in delivered loads so food bins will still be collected with these items in.
If you put the wrong things in your food caddy then our crews will not be able to collect it. There will be a tag attached to your caddy to explain the reason it has not been collected.
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