Brabantia Sort & Go Waste Bin 6L review: a compact food waste caddy

RRP at time of testing: £17 | Check price at Amazon, Nordic Nest or Robert Dyas

My verdict

The Brabantia Sort & Go 6L is the food waste caddy I’d choose to keep in my kitchen. It isn’t the fanciest option I’ve tested, and it doesn’t have the strongest odour control, but I’ll be honest… It is the easiest to live with.

The handle is what makes it with this food caddy. It lets you move it around the kitchen while cooking, scraping plates or clearing out the fridge, then carry it straight outside to an outdoor composter or HOTBIN. I used it without liners, emptied it roughly twice a week and found it easy to rinse and clean afterwards.

It’s best for families, small kitchens, renters, composting households and anyone who wants a neat food waste caddy that doesn’t dominate the worktop. Just don’t confuse it with an actual composter. This collects food waste; so you still need somewhere for that waste to go.

How I’ve tested the Brabantia Sort & Go Waste Bin 6L

I tested the soft beige 6L (there are other sizes available) version in my own kitchen for two weeks, using it as our main food waste caddy. We’re a family of four, with two children aged six and four, and recently we’ve been making a real effort to reduce food waste.

During testing, I used it for the usual family-kitchen debris: coffee grounds, raw chicken cuts, watermelon rind, banana peels, apple cores, eggshells, leftover pasta, untouched burgers, gone-off yoghurt, crusty hummus scraped from the fridge, grape vines and strawberry tops. So yes, it had a fair crack at proving itself over two weeks. 

I first tried it using small liners, but quickly found them unnecessary and a bit of a faff. The handle made the liner fiddly to fit, and because I’ve started emptying food waste directly into my HOTBIN outside, using bags felt like another step I didn’t need. 

Instead, I used the caddy liner-free, emptied it roughly twice a week, then rinsed it and washed it with washing-up liquid before putting it back on the worktop.

What is the Brabantia Sort & Go 6L?

The Brabantia Sort & Go is often called a compost caddy, but let’s be clear from the start: it is not a composter. It won’t transform your banana peels into rich, smug-looking compost while you get on with the school run.

It’s a food waste caddy. Its job is to collect scraps in the kitchen before you move them somewhere else. That could be a council food waste bin, an outdoor compost bin, a HOTBIN or an electric composter. You still need to do that next step yourself.

That distinction matters, because once you understand what it is actually for, the Brabantia makes a lot of sense. It isn’t trying to be clever. It’s trying to make the daily business of collecting and moving food waste less annoying. And, frankly, I’ll take that.

As for size - I've been using the 6L option. There is a 3L version available to buy also, which might suit a couple of individual better. There are also 12L, 16L, 25L and 40L options available. The larger sizes are designed with recycling in mind rather than food waste, though.

Surprisingly, this 6L option isn't the smallest of Brabantia's Sort & Go bins

Brabantia Sort & Go Waste Bin 6L: what’s in the box?

Inside the box you get the Brabantia Sort & Go 6L caddy, a removable lid, a carry handle and the bits needed to wall mount it, including screws and a bracket.

I didn’t test the wall-mounting kit, because for my kitchen the whole appeal of this caddy was that it could move around. I kept it mainly next to the microwave, but also moved it to my kitchen island shelving and near the sink when that made more sense. 

For me, keeping it mobile was far more useful than attaching it permanently to a wall or cupboard.

Design and first impressions of the Brabantia food caddy

The beige colour is a nice, inoffensive shade, and I mean that as a compliment. In my white and grey kitchen, it blends in without drawing attention to itself, which is exactly what I want from something that spends its days holding yoghurt scrapings and watermelon juice.

It is plasticky, because it is plastic, but it doesn’t feel cheap. It’s lightweight rather than flimsy, and the lid, hinge and handle all felt robust during testing. The Brabantia logo is subtle on the edge, and it doesn’t show fingerprints or marks in the way some stainless steel caddies do.

Would I leave it out when people came round? Yes. Not proudly, like it’s a vase of peonies, but without feeling the need to shove it in a cupboard before answering the door.

The lid stands open alone without needing to be held

Is the Brabantia Sort & Go Waste Bin 6L easy to use?

Yes, and this is where the Brabantia really earns its keep IMO. The lid stays open properly, so it doesn’t ping back onto your hand while you’re scraping plates or prepping food. It’s also easy to open one-handed, which is useful when your other hand is precariously balancing a plate full of leftovers.

The handle is the standout feature, which sounds ridiculous, because surely a handle is not revolutionary. But after testing the EKO Puro S and simplehuman compost caddies too, I actually found the Brabantia much easier to move around the kitchen.

The EKO and simplehuman models are easy enough to remove from wherever they hang, whether that’s a bin, cupboard or magnetic dock. But the Brabantia feels more naturally mobile. You pick it up, move it to where you’re chopping, scraping or clearing, then carry it outside when it’s time to empty without any fuss or awkward cradling.

Capacity of the Brabantia Sort & Go Waste Bin: is 6L enough?

For us, yes. I emptied it every few days, roughly twice a week, and it never felt too small. Meal prep days and fridge clear-outs filled it quickest, but we haven’t overfilled it yet.

A 6L caddy won’t suit everyone. If you want to store food waste for a week before emptying it, you might prefer something larger or more sealed. But for a household that empties food waste regularly, especially into an outdoor composter or HOTBIN, 6L feels about right.

It’s small enough that it doesn’t become a horrible job. It fills, you empty it, you clean it, you move on with your life. A tad mundane, but it slots into life nice and neatly. 

The design is lovely - simple, modern and faff-free

Does the Brabantia 6L food caddy smell?

With the lid closed, I didn’t notice any smell day to day. After a few days, it did pong a bit when opened, but it was a mild, noticeable smell rather than anything offensive. Given what I’d put in there, including gone-off yoghurt and crusty hummus, I can live with that.

It’s worth saying that I didn’t leave food waste in the Brabantia as long as I did with the EKO and simplehuman caddies. Mainly because I didn’t need to. The handle made it so easy to carry outside to the HOTBIN that emptying it didn’t feel like a chore to put off.

So no, I wouldn’t claim this has the best odour control of all the food caddies I’ve tested. The EKO was better on that front. But the Brabantia made me empty it more often, and that helped keep the whole thing fresher.

Is the Brabantia Sort & Go Waste Bin 6L easy to clean?

Yes. This was one of my favourite things about it. The inside is smooth, with no awkward corners where food can hide and become a small biological incident. I did notice some liquid collecting at the bottom from wetter waste like yoghurt and watermelon juice, but it didn’t leak when I carried it outside.

After emptying it into the HOTBIN, I gave it a good rinse and washed it with washing-up liquid and a sponge. I haven’t noticed any staining or lingering smells so far, despite chucking in coffee grounds, fruit scraps, pasta, yoghurt and hummus.

The contents tipped out well enough, though I usually gave the caddy a few good whacks on the edge of the HOTBIN to make sure everything came out. Dignified? Not particularly. Effective? Yes.

There's also a 3L version available as well as options up to 40L

Can children help use the Brabantia Sort & Go Waste Bin 6L?

In our house, yes, with supervision. My six- and four-year-olds are now clued up on food waste and knew what to do with the new caddy straight away. Emptying it has become part of their weekly chores.

Because the Brabantia is lightweight and has a handle, it’s manageable for them to help carry it out to the garden with me. I’m not suggesting small children should be sent off alone with a bucket of decomposing leftovers, obviously. But as a supervised family job, it works well.

That’s one of the reasons it suits a family kitchen so nicely. It makes food waste feel like part of the everyday routine rather than another invisible job for the nearest adult woman to absorb.

Food caddy comparison: how does it fare against EKO and simplehuman?

Having tested the Brabantia, EKO Puro S and simplehuman compost caddy, I’d keep the Brabantia in my own kitchen. It’s the least premium-looking of the three, but the easiest to live with if, like me, you’re regularly carrying food waste out to a HOTBIN or outdoor composter.

Out of the ones I've tested recently, the Brabantia has the lowest capacity

The EKO wins on odour control, while the simplehuman has the slickest design. But the Brabantia is the easiest to clean, best suited to liner-free use and the most naturally mobile thanks to its handle. It gets the job done with less faff, which counts for a lot in a family kitchen.

Final verdict: is this the food caddy for you? 

The Brabantia Sort & Go 6L is a practical, affordable food waste caddy that makes kitchen scraps easier to deal with. It doesn’t compost anything itself, and it won’t be the right choice if you want a sleek stainless steel model with stronger odour control or a caddy that attaches neatly to your main bin.

It handles our food waste over three or four days with ease before we empty it

But for everyday family use, it’s excellent. The 6L capacity suited our household well, the Soft Beige colour blended neatly into my kitchen, and the handle made it much easier to move food waste from the kitchen to the HOTBIN outside. I found it best without liners, provided it was emptied and cleaned every few days.

If you already compost at home, or you want a simple food waste caddy that’s easy to carry, clean and keep out on the worktop, this is the one I’d choose. It’s not glamorous. It’s just properly useful, which is exactly what a food waste caddy needs to be.

About the author

Rebecca Roberts (aka Beccy) is our resident lifestyle expert with a practical focus on sleep, wellness and everyday comfort. She’s equally at home tackling frank, NSFW‑adjacent topics as she is road‑testing kitchen appliances, mattresses and vacuums that work for real parents. As a mum of two, she writes with the time‑poor, sleep‑deprived in mind - honest product reviews, realistic routines and products that make parents’ lives easier.

When she’s not at her desk, she’s probably product‑testing with her two helpers, corralling a PTA or walking her two dogs up and down country lanes.

About Mumsnet reviews

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All prices are correct at the time of writing.

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