WASTE food from Wiltshire school dinners can be composted rather than dumped as landfill thanks to a £95,000 grant received by Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.

The trust has been working closely with Sheldon School in Chippenham to pilot the scheme whereby meat and cooked food not normally allowed to be composted for health reasons is placed in sealed containers and heated, reducing the normal composting time to a few weeks.

This is known as "in-vessel composting".

Eleanor Noel-Johnson from Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, said: "The grant from Defra means that we will be able to supply ten secondary schools around the county with these special units and they can use the resulting compost on their own grounds."