THOUSANDS of homes across Glasgow will start receiving bins for recycling their food waste from Monday.

The move is aimed at slashing the estimated 80,000 tonnes of food from city households that goes into landfill each year.

The pilot project will result in 43,000 properties getting a five-litre caddy and liners to keep in the house.

Kerbside properties will receive a 20-litre grey wheelie bin in which to dump leftover food, while tenements will share a 140-litre bin and multi-storeys a 500-litre bin.

The Scottish Government has introduced the Waste Scotland Regulations 2012, which requires local councils to provide householders with a waste food collection service by 2016.

By 2020, there will be a ban on any food waste going into landfill.

Research shows unwanted food takes up almost one third of household rubbish bins.

At the moment that goes into landfill costing councils millions of pounds in landfill tax.

But rotting food also causes methane gas, which damages the environment and contributes to climate change.

The bins will take cooked or uncooked leftovers or out of date food, including dairy products such as cheese and butter, meat and bones, fruit, vegetables, bread, cakes and pastries, rice and pasta, fish, tea bags, coffee grounds and uneaten pet food.

It also takes egg shells and bone but not liquids or cooking oils.

All food must be removed from wrappers, much of which can be recycled separately, before going into the small caddy.

Once it is almost full, the liner should be removed, tied up and put in the outdoor bin, which will be emptied every week.

Tony Boyle, the city council's head of cleansing and waste management, stressed people who add waste food to their compost heaps are encouraged to keep doing so.

When the new grey bins are collected the contents will be taken to a specialist centre and turned into agricultural fertiliser and energy that can be sold to the National Grid.

The £880,000 funding for the pilot project has been provided by Zero Waste Scotland.

The scheme will be monitored before being extended to the remaining 255,000 homes in the city.

Mr Boyle said 32,000 kerbside properties in the north and west of Glasgow, 9000 tenements in the East End and 2000 multi-storey flats in Gorbals will be the first to get the bins.

Letters announcing the service have been sent and each caddy will contain an information leaflet explaining how the service works and a roll of liners.

Food collections will start next month, with the pilot scheme running for up to nine months.

It will be extended to the rest of the city between early 2014 and the end of 2015.

Mr Boyle said: "What we have found from other local authorities is that having a waste food collection scheme makes people think about how much they are buying and never using.

"It is a learning curve for people, but eventually they modify their behaviour and stop buying so much, saving themselves money.

"We think there are a lot of willing individuals out there who will want to take up this recycling option because nobody feels good about wasting food."

Jim Coleman, the council's spokesman for sustainability, said: "More than a third of the waste in an average bin is food, so Glasgow is sending tens of thousands of tonnes to landfill every year.

"That not only harms the environment, but it costs us millions in taxes and wastes a valuable resource that could be used to generate sustainable power, or in agriculture.

"Working with Zero Waste Scotland, we will help people to recycle more of their waste; but the new food waste collections may also prompt us all to think about how much we generate in the first place.

"Most of us are guilty of buying food that we never use – and cutting down on food that goes from shopping bag to fridge and then straight into the bin could make a big difference."

vivienne.nicoll@eveningtimes.co.uk

A waste food collection scheme makes people think about how much they are buying and never using