PLANS to build a food treatment centre to handle Oxfordshire's kitchen waste moved forward this week, with Oxford residents likely to see the return of weekly collections of food waste within 18 months.

Oxfordshire County Council announced that it is inviting tenders from companies to build "one or more" plants to process food and green waste from homes across the county.

County Hall hopes to sign a contract worth about £20m with the successful bidders by March, with the multi-million facility accepting kitchen waste from April 2009. The county council says it wants "one or more facilities" to process about 30,000 tonnes of mixed garden and food waste, and separated food waste, every year.

For some Oxford residents, food collections could be sooner than 2009, with the city soon to announce details of a pilot collection scheme involving a treatment centre outside the county.

Recycling food is now viewed by the county council and all five district councils as a key to future waste collection strategy, significantly reducing the amount of household waste going to landfill.

Faced with widespread anger over the introduction of fortnightly waste collections, Oxford City Council expects a county-wide food recycling scheme to win over the public. Most residents' concerns about vermin and rotting rubbish spilling on to streets have centred on the disposal of food.

The creation of a multi-million treatment plant will see waste from kitchens converted into a compost-like material or used to generate electricity.

Councillor Roger Belson, pictured, Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet member for sustainable development, said: "I am very pleased that we are making progress with this scheme, which is essential to keep costs low for Oxfordshire taxpayers by diverting as much waste as possible from landfill."

Jean Fooks, the city council executive member for a cleaner city, said: "We are hoping to introduce food waste collections in parts of the city next year to see how we can make it work."

The county and district councils presently recycle or compost over 40 per cent of household waste. Food waste is expected to boost this rate to more than 50 per cent when in full operation.

The winning scheme is likely to see the creation of a giant in-vessel composting plant, which involves putting food in vast containers and pumping air in.

But even at this stage, County Hall is not ruling out a county anaerobic digestion plant, where waste ferments in sealed airless containers to produce methane gas. It says the county could even embrace both technologies.

The Chipping Norton recycling company Agrivert was the first company to confirm that it will be tendering to build a giant composter, on land between Yarnton and Cassington.

The centre would recycle about 40,000 tonnes of kitchen and garden waste. It would cost more than £5m to build on a two-hectare site close to the A40 within easy reach of Oxford, Witney and Bicester.

Agrivert built and operates a giant in-vessel composting plant at Edmonton in North London. The company has already submitted an outline planning application to build a plant at Worton Farm to Oxfordshire County Council.

It now appears that hopes of a county-wide waste collection scheme have been dashed. It looks like the Vale of White Horse, South Oxfordshire and West Oxfordshire district councils are to join forces, with Oxford City and Cherwell, which do not contract out waste collection, continuing to operate alone with their own staff.

It is believed that the City and Cherwell want to collect food waste mixed with garden waste, while the other district councils want to collect food waste separately.

The food waste treatment contract is running alongside a tendering process for a far more costly plant to treat waste that cannot be composted.

Major incineration companies dominated a shortlist in July by Oxfordshire County Council of firms bidding to build a residual waste plant in the county