Food comprises half the waste collected in Hastings and Napier and the twin cities may look at a special collection to turn meal scraps into compost.
The initiative was one of 36 submissions lodged as part of a review of the waste minimisation and management plan, worked on by a committee comprising staff and councillors from Hastings district and Napier city councils.
Earthcare Environmental and Bay Environmental Bins put forward the idea of a separate collection for food waste and presented their plan to the committee on Friday.
Earthcare started a trial of the special food collection in Putararu in 2011.
Custom-made bins and plastic bags were provided for people to deposit their scraps and to put our for kerb collection.
More than 70 per cent of people took part in the trial and food waste collected totalled 2.19kg per week, per house.
The food waste could then be turned into compost for domestic or commercial gardens.
The committee agreed it should investigate the possibility of providing a food waste collection for Hastings and Napier.
Committee chairwoman Cynthia Bowers said the idea appealed to her because it would reduce the amount of "putrescibles"- solid waste which contained organic matter capable of being decomposed by micro-organisms.
"Putrescibles have a negative impact on the landfill in that they increase the level of methane. So the more we can take out of the waste stream and turn into compost, the better.
"The other thing that appealed to me about the trial they did was the outcome where people separated their food and realised the amount of food they were wasting."
People made an effort to cut back on the food they were wasting and managed to improve their household budget.
"It is coming back to the old-fashioned values of periods like the 1930s, where people were more thrifty. Now we have become more affluent and those thrifty habits from the earlier generations have gone. This could be a way to encourage more thriftiness and making better use of our precious family budgets."
The council would also look at using the Government's waste levy fund to reduce the costs of worm farm and compost systems to make them more affordable for people to buy.
The submission from the Sustaining Hawke's Bay Trust said cost was one of the barriers preventing people from using the home-based food compost options.
"I think this is the more immediate option for us as the food collection service is more of a long-term thing. We would have to think carefully about the cost implications."
The waste plan will go before Napier and Hastings councils to be approved before July 1.