Thousands of households will be able to have their food waste and leftovers collected from the doorstep by the borough council from this week.

A 26-week trial, including 11,000 homes, has begun on how best to collect domestic food waste - Swindon is the first town in Wiltshire to bring in such a weekly collection.

Each house on the trial will have received a five litre indoor grey caddy and a 23 litre outdoor green caddy. Those living in flats have received an indoor five litre grey caddy and a large food waste bin will be introduced to their communal bin stores.

Maureen Penny, Swindon Borough Council’s cabinet member for highways and the environment, said: “Trialling food waste collections is one of the key actions from the waste strategy we agreed last year which aims to protect the environment and make sure we can collect Swindon’s waste in a sustainable way.

“Food waste collections are carried out by many other councils up and down the country and can have a huge impact on hitting recycling targets set by national government as well as making sure we are processing our waste in the best possible way for the environment.”

If the trial is successful, the council's cabinet will be asked to approve setting up collections from every house and flat across the whole borough