Food Waste Collection Service

We have now completed our deliveries of caddy packs. If you think we might have missed your home when delivering these or if there is an issue with your caddy or the items inside it, please complete this form: Food Waste Caddy Deliveries - Reporting an Issue or call customer services on 01264 368000 or 01794 527700.

If approved, replacement caddies and caddy liners will be delivered within 10 working days. If you have reported a damaged caddy, please leave it out for the team to collect.

All new food waste caddies and shared bins have been provided free of charge as part of the service change. Caddies and bins will remain free of charge for up to 12 months.

To order a kerbside caddy, click here. You can also use this link to order your black and brown wheeled bin, and your garden waste bin, if you choose to subscribe. Please note, the kerbside caddy is currently free of charge, but the wheeled bins are chargeable.

The food waste collection service is a weekly collection service - if you want to check any of your waste collection days online, click here.

Use your kitchen caddy to collect your food waste in the home. To keep your caddy clean, you can use a compostable caddy liner or any other bags, newspaper, paper towels or kitchen roll. Please do not use black bin bags. Food waste can be put into your caddy loose too, if you prefer.

When ready, empty your food waste into your kerbside caddy, or shared bin, ready for your collection day.

If you have a kerbside caddy, you need to put this out for collection at the edge of your property, by 7am on your collection day. Present the caddy with the lid closed and handle upright, as this locks the caddy lid and helps the collection team. Please note, side or excess waste will not be collected.

Your caddy will either be emptied directly into the vehicle, or into a wheeled bin the collection team use to make their collections more efficient. Our food waste collection vehicles can collect food waste directly from caddies, or from a wheeled bin. Once it's been emptied, please put your caddy back onto your property as soon as possible afterwards.

If you've been given a shared wheeled bin, the food waste collection team will collect this from your bin store area, and return it once its emptied.

Here is a list of what we can and cannot collect:

We provided a starter pack of 7 litre compostable liners with each caddy pack. It's expected that these should last a household approximately 10 weeks.

If you wish to continue to use compostable caddy liners, they can be purchased from local shops or online. We recommend you purchase 7 litre liners, as they will comfortably fit your 5 litre kitchen caddy.

Alternatively, you can line your caddy with other bags, newspaper, kitchen roll or paper towels. Please do not use black bin bags. Food waste can be put into your caddy loose too, if you prefer.

Shared bins are lined by the collection team, to help keep them clean and pleasant for everyone to use.

TOP TIP: Pop a piece of kitchen roll in the bottom or your caddy or liner, as it helps soak up any liquids.

If you forget to put your caddy out for collection by 7am on your collection day, or if it is missed by our collection team, simply put it out again the following week, and we will collect it then. As it is a weekly collection service, we won't return for any missed bins. If you wish to discuss any matters relating to a missed caddy collection, please call Customer Services on 01264 368000 or 01794 527700.

Food waste is collected weekly, from lockable caddies, which limits the likelihood of pests or odours.

Food waste collections have been provided for many years by councils across the country, and we have learned from their experiences when designing our service.

The kitchen caddies can be easily washed out, and can even go in your dishwasher. The kerbside caddy is easy to rinse out too.  Using a liner will help your caddies stay cleaner for longer.

TOP TIP: If you ever have small fruit flies in your kitchen bin or caddy, put out a small container with some vinegar in it. Cover the container with clingfilm, and pop some small holes in the top. The flies will be attracted to the vinegar instead.

We do check the caddies and bins on collection day, and we use our orange information tag to advise of any issues. If you have an orange tag, your collection team will have made a note on it, advising of the issue. It could be that you have put the wrong items in your caddy, or that your caddy is damaged, dirty or overfilled. The tag will provide you with some advice, however, if you wish to discuss it further, you can call Customer Services on 01264 368000 or 01794 527700.

Between October 2025 and April 2026, the collected food waste will be shared between two local anaerobic digestion facilities - one near Basingstoke and another near Bournemouth. From April 2026, all of the collected food waste will be processed at the anaerobic digestion facility near Basingstoke.

At the anaerobic digestion facility, the food waste is broken down by micro-organisms in the absence of oxygen. The methane-rich biogas generated during this process is used to produce heat and electricity and the remaining product is used as a nutrient rich fertiliser. If you wish to find out more, visit: Herriard AD Facility 

We recognise that some households already have an alternative solution for their food waste including home composting. Our food waste collection service collects food waste that some people don't usually compost such as cooked food, raw meat and bones, so it can be used for just these items if that's preferred. 

If you don't produce much food waste at home, you don't have to put your caddy out for collection regularly. You can put your caddy out for collection when you have the need. Please do not store up your food waste for longer than a week. 

The kitchen caddy is 5 litres. It measures H216mm x W246mm x D204mm.

The kerbside caddy is 23 litres. It measures H374mm x W324mm x D350mm.

The communal bin (for bin stores) is 140 litres. It measures H1049mm x W486mm x D563mm.

For most households, one 23 litre kerbside caddy is enough capacity, as it is emptied weekly. However, if you feel your household needs an additional caddy, please contact Customer Services on 01264 368000 or 01794 527700. Please note, side or excess waste will not be collected.

If you need help moving any of your bins, we have more information about this service on our Assisted Bin Collections web page. 

We still support the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, and our new collection service works alongside it. Reducing your food waste will always be the preferred option, where possible, and not only that, it saves you money!  The average UK family could save £83 per month, around £1,000 per year, by saving food from the bin. Take a look at their website for useful hints, tips and recipes. 

We understand that there can be difficulties with shared or communal bins so we have been working with each managing agent/landlord to help the food waste collection service be successful. If you have any concerns, please do get in touch with the team, their details are below.

Food waste collections are common place across the country, and as a result there are lots of top tips out there. Take a look at this video for some ideas:

We have a fleet of 7.5 tonne specialist food waste collection vehicles. They're able to access the wide range of rural and urban properties across the borough. Each vehicle has a small container on the back which we can empty the kerbside caddies directly into. This container will then tip the food waste into the vehicle's main skip-like body. Each vehicle can also empty wheeled bins. All of our fleet, including our food waste collection vehicles, run on HVO - Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil - a renewable fuel with reduced greenhouse emissions of up to 95%.

Some of the set up and ongoing service costs have been covered by the Government, as it is a mandated service. More information on this can be found here.

As we have rolled out the service five months early, we are covering these operational costs ourselves. More information on this can be found on page 142 here. 

This new service is an important part of our work to tackle climate change and we know from speaking to our residents that they are keen for us to help them to recycle more at the kerbside.  

This is a domestic waste collection service. If you are a business, you will need to contact your commercial waste collection provider to arrange a food waste collection service.

Yes - if you need any of our printed materials to be translated or provided in a larger print, please email us: foodwaste@testvalley.gov.uk