Birmingham currently does not collect food waste, which means that it goes into black bags for weekly collection and causes problems, such as attracting rodents to our streets.
If this were collected separately, as happens in towns such as Bristol, Swansea, Leeds and Preston, we could reduce the numbers of vermin in the city, lock up the carbon in compost to improve soil for local food growing or use it in anaerobic digestion to produce electricity. If food waste is dumped into landfill it produces methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas and contributes to global warming.
Better kerbside recycling facilities could also ensure more value is obtained from the recyclable materials that remain. There are employment opportunities which the council should be taking advantage of in recycling and re-using resources better rather than burning them.
Please sign the petition asking the council to plan to halve the amount of household rubbish for disposal by 2020, through effective recycling and digestion of food waste.
http://epetition.birmingham.public-i.tv/epetition_core/community/petition/1514
