Genuine question, if you don’t use a food waste bin

[BarbarAnna]

Why not?

Accepting that some people may not have a garden or room

But if you live in a house with a driveway and a garden, and your council provides food waste collections, why wouldn’t you utilise this?

I am genuinely interested to know.

Not for the first time, my dim witted dog has eaten food which has been ripped out of a bin bag by presumably cats, rats, birds or foxes.

I just don’t get why you wouldn’t use the facility if it is there.

Em honestly because it attract flies, teabags go mouldy and also of all household waste that's the stuff that will disintegrate the fastest and probably helps break down other bin material 🤷

We got mice! Now food waste to dogs, birds or landfill.

I don’t think my council offer it

We have one we never use. Peelings get composted, leftover cooked food is either frozen for future use or fed to the pets as appropriate. I meal plan to use up fresh food whilst it is in good condition before buying more.

Council dont collect food waste.
I compost most stuff, but bones, occasional over catering of potatoes, scrapings off a plate before it is washed etc etc all goes in the none recyclable bin.

Pervious house - back yard only, no drive. No council collection. All food waste binned as although I had technically space to compost, I had no soil to add compost to.

Our council doesnt offer food waste collection. My parents use theirs a lot.

I have a question though - why do so many people peel things like carrots and potatoes? Isnt a lot of the fibre and goodness in the skin? I never peel carrots and love skin on mash/roasties

Because my partner has a severe case of 'bin blindness' and does the bins about once a year if I'm lucky. So putting everything in one bin makes my life a lot easier and is my small, selfish act of rebellion. Never, ever won a game of 'bin Jenga' in my life.

We don't have food caddies or collection here either, but, in truth there is very little food that I could see going in it. We compost veg peelings, tea bags, fruit cores and peel, and ...er... tend to eat the other food we buy.

Because I'm the only person who ever empties it.

I use ours a lot We don’t have much of a garden so we can’t compost. It’s normally pretty full by the end of the week, what with coffee filters, tea bags, fruit and veg peel, egg shells, bones etc.

I’m not convinced it’s that environmentally friendly though. The outside bin is plastic and although we keep it in the garage most of the time we have to put it out on the night before collection that’s long enough for it to get gnawed at by local wildlife, mostly foxes. The holes get so bad we have had to have a new bin issued several times. We recycle the old one with the plastics but it’s still very wasteful. The holes also mean flies get in and it can get smelly/maggoty in the summer.

However OTH our neighbours don’t use their food waste bin at all. Putting the food waste in their big landfill wheelie bin means the wheelie bin also gets gnawed at by wildlife and as it is only collected fortnightly (not weekly like the food waste bin) it gets very, very smelly and maggoty every summer. Luckily they don’t store it near our boundary! At least the little food waste bin is easy to rinse and disinfect.

A useful hint is to cover any small holes chewed in the bins with heavy duty duct tape. I use the silvery one and I’ve found that animals don’t chew that for some strange reason. Using this has meant our current food waste bin has lasted a couple of years without the initial small holes getting any worse.

All,those people saying they don’t use theirs but compost instead - what about things like egg shells and fish/animal bones etc ? Can they be composted? And do you really never have a stale heel of bread or rock hard slice of cake that needs to chucked out? If so, I am very impressed.

The thought of it used to give me the boak and we never did it but the council moved to 3 weekly collections of the grey bin so we had no choice. As long as you empty the food caddy regularly and double bag the waste so they don’t burst it’s actually ok. Gets taken away every 2 weeks.

I can’t believe how many councils don’t offer this. I’m pretty sure mine has for at least 10 years!

No food is wasted in our house! Fruit and veg peelings go into compost. We don't eat meat so no bones, and my husband is a human dustbin so eats all leftovers, not that there are ever many!

I don't understand people saying they have no food waste.
Do you have a compost bin?

We have LOADS of compost which goes in our garden, but I love to garden, have a large garden, and have serious compost bins in the garden.

Our council used to collect but then withdrew the service. Apparently they'd been disposing the food waste in with the general waste for months anyway. So glad we spent that time diligently scraping and paying for compostable bags!

Council doesn’t offer it here, and if it’s only two weekly I’m not sure I’d like all that hanging around. At least I can empty my kitchen bin every day or so in to the big bin outside.
My garden isn’t big enough for a compost bin, and they attract rats.

We don't have a food waste collection and I've seen rats in the garden without a compost heap, so I'd rather not give them another source of food.

The maggots, flies and fact that when the bin men collect them they go in the same bin lorry with the rest of the rubbish

So I now put all food waste in with rest of my rubbish too

I compost peelings, but so much food waste shouldn’t be composted

All,those people saying they don’t use theirs but compost instead - what about things like egg shells and fish/animal bones etc ? Can they be composted? And do you really never have a stale heel of bread or rock hard slice of cake that needs to chucked out?

Egg shells go in the compost - full of nutrients apparently
I don't but meat or fish on the bone very often, tbh, but it would go in the normal kitchen bin as/ when I do. If bread gets to it's date then I tend to put it in the freezer and then use it when emergency toast is needed. Don't grasp the concept of spare / rock hard cake ??

I don't even know if this is offered in my area. No caddy has appeared, so I assume not.

Everyone with dogs - do they eat onion / garlic peel etc?!

It turns my stomach, that’s why. My in-laws have one sitting up on the windowsill. I can’t bring myself to open it to look at the remains of their breakfast and lunch festering away.

🤢

Our council is going to start issuing these. Can't say I'm looking forward to it. If they were a mini version of the big bins with a lid then it would help solve some of the problems maybe.

Current council doesn't do food bins, but in my last house, didn't have food waste to put in it, just the very occasional bit of peelings, which went on the compost pile, I'm religious about freezing things and using up leftovers!