For many Local Authorities, the introduction of weekly food waste collections has led to new rounds, vehicles, containers, communications and working practices. But now that services are becoming established, attention can begin to shift to another important question:
What impact is food waste having on the rest of your streams?
Residual bins become lighter, recycling behaviours may change, vehicle capacity and round productivity can shift, and seasonal events can create sudden peaks in particular materials.
In this newsletter, we’re taking a wider look at food waste collections; from understanding changes through Waste Composition Analysis, to identifying opportunities for route optimisation. And, with Halloween just around the corner, we’re also looking at what happens when thousands of pumpkins suddenly enter the waste stream!
Before dedicated collections were introduced, Integrated Skills’ Waste Composition Analysis regularly found significant quantities of food within residual waste. Across numerous Local Authority Waste Composition Analysis (WCA) projects, we commonly found that around 3kg of food waste per household was remaining in the residual stream.
A lighter residual bin may sound like a simple consequence of food waste separation, but across an entire collection service, the operational implications can be significant. If vehicles are regularly returning with lower payloads, there may be an opportunity to rebalance rounds, redistribute properties or reduce unnecessary mileage.
Increased participation in other recycling streams may mean capacity is also needed elsewhere – this is where route modelling becomes particularly useful. Rather than changing live rounds, authorities can model different scenarios, assessing vehicle capacity, working hours, disposal locations, housing type, access restrictions and collection frequency.
As waste services continue to change, new housing is built, participation changes and seasonal variations affect volumes, routes need to evolve too. Our recent blog explores why the introduction of food waste collections can provide a useful opportunity to review the wider collection service.
What a brilliant couple of days we had at RWM Expo 2026!
Our expanded stand (which received some complements, thank you kindly) gave us the opportunity to demonstrate the latest developments in RouteSmart route optimisation and our SmartSuite in-cab and back-office solutions.
Conversations were largely focused on how connected technology can help organisations improve operational visibility, increase efficiency and deliver safer, more resilient waste and recycling services.
We were joined by our partners Frith Resource Management and Fleetclear, bringing together expertise in waste analysis, policy and strategy development, fleet safety, camera technology and connected operations.
Thank you to everyone who visited stand CT-G284, attended a demonstration or simply paused for a conversation. RWM continues to be an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas, understand the challenges facing the sector and explore practical ways to improve service delivery.
If we didn’t manage to speak at the event (or you would like to continue the conversation), just get in touch.
Halloween provides a timely reminder of just how quickly seasonal behaviour can change the waste stream…
Integrated Skills’ previous WCA across 6 Local Authorities found an average of 0.3kg of pumpkins, decorations and spent fireworks per household in residual bins during the first week of November 2024. Pumpkins can create a particularly visible spike!
Depending on the collection arrangements in each authority, residents should be encouraged to use the appropriate food or garden waste service rather than putting unwanted pumpkins into residual waste. Better still, edible pumpkin can be used for cooking before the remainder is recycled.
There is another Halloween item worth highlighting too: battery-operated candles and decorations.
LED candles are a safer alternative to an open flame, but if the batteries inside them are crushed or damaged, they can ignite and cause serious fires in collection vehicles and waste facilities. It’s worth reminding residents of the proper processes.
Our development team has been busy making improvements to SmartSuite, including a new integration designed to make it easier for Local Authorities to keep residents informed about their waste and recycling collections.
For LAs managing multiple waste streams, collection frequencies and changing rounds, keeping residents up to date is an important part of delivering an effective service.
Our new Public-Facing Calendar integration allows collection day information held within SmartSuite to be used to update customer-facing calendars. The integration reduces the need to manually maintain collection calendars, saving administrative time and supporting more consistent, accurate information.
Alongside this new functionality, our developers have continued working on improvements to the SmartSuite platform, including behind-the-scenes fixes and further developments that we’ll be sharing in due course.
Our US clients are using SmartSuite Mobile to support a wide range of frontline services, including waste and recycling collections, street sweeping, gritting, salting and snow ploughing operations.
By the end of 2026, SmartSuite Mobile is expected to be installed on approximately 500 vehicles across 12 client organisations in seven states.
In November, two ISL team members, Andy Clewes and Nathan Burch, will be heading across the Atlantic to visit key SmartSuite Mobile users across the USA. Their visit will provide a valuable opportunity to spend time with clients, understand how their operational needs are evolving and hear directly from the people using the technology.
They’ll also be gathering feedback and exploring where SmartSuite can continue to develop to meet real-world operational challenges.
We’ll share more from Andy and Nathan’s US trip later in the year.
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