EVERYONE in Cheddar, Axbridge and Wedmore will be expected to separate off their vegetable peelings and food scraps for a new weekly rubbish collection starting next year.
EVERYONE in Cheddar, Axbridge and Wedmore will be expected to separate off their vegetable peelings and food scraps for a new weekly rubbish collection starting next year.
By 2009, across Sedgemoor there will be a weekly food waste and recycling collection and black bag rubbish will be picked up fortnightly.
The move comes as Sedgemoor was ranked one of the worst areas in the South West for recycling.
The district came 42nd out of 45 for recycling household waste and nationally came 265 out of 354.
The figures, released by the Audit Commission this week, take into account the percentage of waste collected from homes which was recycled during 2006/07.
Sedgemoor only recycled 15.3 per cent of its waste, while neighbouring Mendip recycled 22.6 per cent.
Waste collection in the district became the responsibility of the Somerset Waste Partnership (SWP) in October 2007.
SWP area operations team leader for the west area, Colin Mercer, said: "Recycling rates won't improve until we introduce new services, such as collections for food waste.
"By 2009 we hope to have fortnightly collections in place, with recycling and food waste being collected on a weekly basis.
"We are currently setting up the provisions for this and eventually food waste in Sedgemoor will be sent to a processing plant where it can be made into compost and sold.
"We will soon be doing trials for collecting plastics and cardboard in certain areas of the county, but the exact locations have not been finalised yet.
"Sedgemoor has been set Government targets, which it has met, and the figures for the district aren't bad. The area is just limited by what can be collected at the moment.
"When the new services come in next year, we will be collecting food waste which accounts for about 35-40 per cent of waste. Once we start doing that, we will be topping collections in the South West."
The worst area for collecting rubbish in the South West was the Isles of Scilly, while nationally, Liverpool came out at the bottom.
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