Sefton Council has taken delivery of the first 9,000 outdoor food waste caddies in Bootle, Merseyside, during the final week of February 2026. These will be distributed to local homes ahead of a new weekly food waste collection service that is expected to start across the area in autumn 2026.
Every household will eventually receive a small indoor kitchen caddy, a larger lockable outdoor caddy, and a supply of compostable liners to help sort kitchen scraps. Residents will be able to recycle both raw and cooked food waste, which will be collected from their doorsteps once the full service launches later this year.
The collected waste will be taken to a facility where it undergoes a process called anaerobic digestion. According to the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority, this method turns old food into renewable biogas and nutrient-rich fertiliser for use on farms.
While the government set a national deadline of 31 March 2026 for these services, Sefton is among about 25 percent of councils that will start their collections later in the year. To encourage residents to get involved, the council has launched a public competition to name the new fleet of food waste trucks.
This competition is open for entries until 23 March 2026, with the winning names set to be announced in May. The named trucks will then begin work when the weekly collections officially roll out to every home in the borough this autumn.
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