Plan to cut tonnes of food waste

Some 650,000 tonnes of food waste ends up in Scottish landfill sites

Falkirk Council has announced plans to cut the amount of food waste buried in landfill sites.

About 7,500 households will take part in a trial where waste like potato peelings will be combined with other brown bin compostable garden waste.

Up to 650,000 tonnes of unwanted food is thought to end up in Scotland's landfill sites every year.

The council has been given £284,000 from the Scottish Government for the trial, expected to begin in the spring.

Falkirk will join councils in Aberdeenshire, East Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire and Perth and Kinross to pilot the scheme.

'Leftovers rotting'

Three of the local authorities will operate separate "food only" collections and three will collect the food along with green waste from domestic gardens.

Falkirk's convener of environment and heritage, Adrian Mahoney, said cutting food waste was one of the biggest challenges for society.

He said: "Discarded food produces huge amounts of methane gas which contributes to climate change.

"While home composting is recognised as the best environmental option for food waste, we have to look at all the ways to reduce food leftovers rotting in landfill sites.

"This trial will help us explore the options."

Falkirk has also signed up to the new Love Food Hate Waste campaign which aims to help people save money and the environment with recipes for leftovers and information on meal planning.