Local authorities have been navigating the changes introduced by the Simpler Recycling legislation, designed to maximise recycling rates and reduce waste sent to landfill. Now, with the 31 March 2026 implementation deadline for weekly food waste collections looming, the focus is on making it happen across all regions, writes Paul Brown, Hillend Engineering’s Sales and Aftersales Director.
With a 50-year heritage in the design and build of refuse collection vehicles, Hillend Engineering was a pioneer of specialist food waste collection bodies 25 years ago. Today’s upgraded bodies are designed and continuously refined to achieve ultra-efficiency in meeting the diverse needs of local collection rounds.
One of the comments that we often hear at the outset of a discussion with a customer is that it is a big challenge to predict the amount of waste that will be generated from a newly introduced service. From week to week, this is also likely to fluctuate depending on the menu choices of households and restaurants. Historically, the introduction of weekly food waste collections has reduced household waste, as households become more aware of their own levels of waste – an entirely positive outcome of the new legislation.
Our 2025 updated specialist food waste body MICRO XHD is the result of listening to the challenges faced by customers and building a product that meets their needs. This includes maximising body capacity, a no-leaks guarantee, ease and speed of loading, and operator safety.
In addition, the vehicle must combine high capacity with the agility to tackle everything from bustling high streets, parked cars and tight turning environments to rural areas and country lanes. Hillend Engineering’s 7.5-tonne and 12-tonne MICRO XHD’s are big enough to stay out longer and compact enough for ultra manoeuvrability. A top-mounted sweeping compaction system levels out the load and avoids crushing and leakage to optimise the body volume for an impressive payload.
A £4 million investment at our Hillend Engineering factory in Dunfermline is enabling us to increase production and improve build quality. The introduction of a state-of-the-art Brake Press enables us to create bodies out of a single sheet of high tensile steel, which is essential in ensuring that our food waste vehicles can deliver on the no-leaks guarantee, which is vital when working with high liquid content.
This year, we have released our upgraded MICRO XHD model with advanced electronics and proportional hydraulics, which give greater control in speeding up or slowing down the bin lift operation. This model also provides the option of a food-waste trough, where it is faster for food waste to be tipped into the trough as opposed to individual caddie tipping.
The latest safety features include bin guards to protect the operator from walking directly into the operating elements, ergonomically designed controls, and the option of a wander lead to keep the operator out of the way of traffic flow in the busiest areas. In practice, this means greater control with the bin lift and tip mechanism, to provide optimum cycle speed combined with care and precision.
Customers have been delighted by the ease of operation, with the controls being exceptionally straightforward to use, enabling the operator to be trained quickly and providing the assurance of a fully efficient vehicle with minimal delays to collection rounds.
Support in the selection process
WRAP (The Waste Resources Action Programme) has simplified the selection process for councils through the introduction of a standardised vehicle specification, based on a one-piece tipping body, at 7.5 tonnes and 12 tonnes. This is useful to procurement teams, and as manufacturers, we are providing best-in-class bodies within these criteria.
The requirement to support authorities to meet net-zero goals is also an important factor, and vehicle efficiency is already making a considerable contribution to this. Aligned with our relationship with Electra Commercial Vehicles, we can also provide an efficient body on a fully electric chassis.
There has been good industry collaboration, with learnings shared from authorities who have rolled out weekly food waste collections, and this has been invaluable in terms of understanding the implementation challenges. This insight starts with whether the supply of funded bin liners will ultimately save cost further down the process by encouraging householders to start to segregate food waste.
Waste management teams have been managing the purchase and supply of robust food waste caddies, with lockable lids to deter foxes and rodents.
Householders are essential in avoiding contamination
Contamination is a huge issue for waste management across all areas, with recycling levels affected by a lack of understanding or a lack of adherence at the household and business levels. The introduction of AI cameras on RCVs will help reduce this at the point of tipping, but it will be essential to educate households to avoid contamination by correctly segregating waste streams for collection.
Food waste efficiency
For local authorities, there are many complexities involved in the introduction of weekly food waste collections, which range from accommodating and manoeuvring additional vehicles in their yards to collecting varying amounts of food waste from different types of neighbourhoods. By working closely with customers and understanding the intricacies of each area’s collections, we are confident that our specialist products and technology updates will meet customer demands. But our business is continuously evolving and challenging us to invest in ensuring that we provide ultimate efficiency in waste collection.
