A BID to boost recycling rates in Oxford has suffered a blow after funding for food waste collections at flats was denied.

An Oxford City Council bid for more than £1m to extend its food waste collection scheme to the city’s flat blocks was thrown out.

Residents of houses in the city can currently recycle food waste once a week, but the service isn’t available for flats.

According to the council, the Department for Communities and Local Government threw out the cash bid after claiming the project was not viable.

But the council said it wants to look at other ways to fund the roll-out as a way of increasing recycling rates in the city.

Council recycling officer Emily Martin said: “It’s something we would like to see happening in the future.

“We’re doing a trial at the moment, and about 1,400 individual flats are taking part which will hopefully give us the information we need about the feasibility of the scheme.”

The council is currently aiming to recycle 51 per cent of the city’s waste by 2016. To do this, it will have to achieve an increase of 4.66 percentage points on its current rate of 46.34 per cent.

Following efforts in Rose Hill, the recycling rate rose from 39 per cent to 46 per cent, and in Barton the council’s intervention resulted in an increase from 42 to 49 per cent. The council has now moved on to Blackbird and Greater Leys.

But city executive board member for cleaner greener Oxford, councillor John Tanner, said the council should aim higher than 51 per cent.

He said: “I think we’re going to come very close to our target, but at the end of the day when South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse can reach 70 per cent, it shows we need to try even harder.

“The lack of money to pay for proper recycling at flats is a hindrance, but I think if you just walk around Oxford you will see that the problem is that some people just aren’t recycling properly, they’re not putting the right things in the right boxes.”

Councillor James Fry, who chairs the council’s recycling panel, said: “We’re trying to target the people who by the very nature of where they live, in flats or shared houses, struggle with recycling. “If you spend time explaining it to people we can achieve what we want to achieve.”