Do people dislike having a food waste bin collected separately

[WillowTit]

do you dislike your food waste bin?
my colleagues dont like it
all sorts of complaints

the bin lorry will smell is one example

Doesn't really bother me. All veg peelings go in compositor, and that generally leaves us with a few dried out scrapes of cat food, the occasional fish skin and oil from cooking which soaks in newspaper at the bottom, although DH has put a banana skin in there this week by mistake. We don't keep a bin inside the house, so scrapes more or less go straight outside. One thing we do is rinse it occasionally with rainwater every few weeks, and up that in the summer.

Either way, many of us can't really complain, it's the people who collect it who get the real impact.

It’s a great idea. The only food waste I normally have is peelings & coffee grounds but since I’m in a flat, composting isn’t an option.

I’ve had separate food waste collection for years.

Only issue I have is that the bin collectors fling the large kerbside bucket around and the lid of mine was broken recently so I’ll have to request a replacement else it will get smelly waiting on next collection.

I've come to terms with it and don't really mind now.

We compost all peelings. Plate scrapings go down the waste disposal. The only things in the food bin are bones and meat trimmings, and occasional extra when I am deep cleaning the fridge.

My inside caddy doesn't even get half full so I transfer it on collection day. I put it out that morning, unlike my recycling bins that go out the night before. If it goes out early, the foxes can get to it.

Ours has always been separate; it’s fine, it’s better environmentally to have it separate. Just have to keep the bin itself in a shady spot. Why does it matter if the lorry smells??

It’s a pain having to have 3 separate bins (normal, recycling, food) in a tiny kitchen though.

I get why we have to separate food waste but it’s a pain, extra work and extra indoor bin taking up space.

Collection schedule is irrelevant as will just keep putting it outside when I go outside to the bins.Don’t even know when most of the collections are seems to vary!

The foxes in our area know how to get into the food waste bins. Every single time I’ve tried to use the bin, the next morning the whole lot is scattered found our garden. This happens repeatedly. We’ve given up using it. All our good waste goes in the the black bin now.

We've had food collections for a few years now. Its the same bin for garden waste in our area. We use green compostible bags in the little caddy and then double bag before putting into the outdoor bin. Ours is collected every 2 weeks so in the summer we sometimes have had maggots in the outside bin (boiling water can sort that out).
The rest of our bins are collected every 3 weeks.

We've had food waste bins in our local authority (Bath and North East Somerset ) for many years. We've never had foxes or cats get into them because they are "lockable". If the handle is forward its locked.
We mitigate the fly problem by keeping the bigger caddy at the end of the drive behind the boundary wall.

It was introduced here over 10yrs ago. I gave it a chance and it was disgusting. I would have had to keep running outside because I couldn’t keep it in the house because it smelt so bad. Here it was size of a bin you would keep in your bedroom or bathroom, basically a tiny bucket with a lid on it.

I don’t see anyone that uses them here, I’m in central Scotland. We get general waste bins emptied every 2weeks and recycling ones every 4wks. These little ones were supposed to be every week but literally never see any out it’s making me wonder if they even do it anymore.

I actively prefer it because otherwise the big bin can get pongy

we use a kitchen caddy and empty to the proper recycling bin which is collected fortnightly. Yes that smells in summer but it’s not worse than cleaning dog poo off my show because people can’t be arsed to take their waste home.

Same here , I can't understand all the fuss .
Food caddy is only small and lives in the kitchen, it gets emptied about two or three times per week.
Food wheelie bin gets emptied once a fortnight in the winter and every week in the spring & summer.

If anyone is concerned about their bins smelling have a look around to see if there is a bin washing service available, they follow the bin wagons around and jet wash your bins for you .
I don't use my local one but I think it's about £5 per service .

Doesn't bother me in the slightest and I really cannot understand the "logic" (using the word in the loosest sense) of those who oppose the idea.

We have had this for 15 years or so. Much better than food in the kitchen bin. We have never had an issue with foxes managing to unlock the bin and we have a very high fox population.

I don’t use mine, there are far too many foxes and rats where I live I don’t want to attract them even more. Plus I don’t want to keep old food in the kitchen for the whole week. I don’t care about my black bin smelling, it already has cat litter going in there. I don’t have masses of food waste anyway, single person household and careful with what I buy and use.

Do you only buy pre-packaged processed foods? We don't thriw away much edible waste but our kitchen caddy is full after 48 hours - banana skins, applecores, eggshells, the stalks from aubergines, the seed and shell froma avocado, the seeds and stalk from Peppers and butternut squash, bits of gristle cut from meat before cooking and the bones of a chicken (once they have been thoroughly boiled for soup obviously). I can't imagine what a healthy food plan might look like that didn't generate any waste .

Ours fills fairly quickly on this basis too. Not food 'waste' as such - just peelings, eggshells, bones etc.

Its a real non issue. We have had them for years. A small indoor caddy abd a larger outdoor one. I buy the soecific bags but you dont need to. Empty the indoor one once or twice a week, put the outdoor one out each week with whichever bin is due. I do it furst thing so usially had the kettle on, hot water and splash of cleaner in the small caddy, wipe aroubd and replace

Where I am in Melbourne, the food waste bin is the garden waste bin. It's collected weekly and made into compost. Everything edible bar tea bags goes in. Most of my waste food though, goes into the back yard composter, temporarily a counter top canister, so the Council one doesn't get much at all.
Neither gets time to smell, though to be fair I put oyster shells and other seafood bits as well as bones into a compostable bag and straight into the green bin. They honk in minutes.

The only time I've seen animals at the bins, i.e ravens, it's because they are overfilled. The bins, not the birds.

We used to live in an area where food waste we t into the same bin as garden waste and was collected fortnightly. It was a great service.

Where we live now there is no food waste collection. Our local council has missed the deadline for setting one up but apparently we will be getting a separate food waste bin "in the summer". It will be collected weekly. I don't see an issue with it. Id rather have just one combined garden and food waste wheelie bin though.

I dont have a lot of food waste though - i have a compost bin, and guinea pigs. The pigs eat all the peppers insides, brocolli stalks, fruit cores, some peelings.

I don’t throw away a lot of food either, it’s pretty much just eggshells, fruit and veg peelings and bones. I find that most food waste is generated around tea time. Dc having fruit, dinner prep etc. I just use a plastic bowl which is emptied into outside bin during post dinner clean up so don’t bother with a caddy.

I think there’s a rather worrying lack of concern of what happens to our waste. Food going to landfill can give off methane and cause fires for example. I know that you believe your food waste is insignificant but it does mount up over time and across households.

We eat lunch out and have a light dinner/tea, mainly. And yes if we eat in we have mostly precooked but not ultra processed food. Our food waste is really minimal.

I've had one for a while now

1. Obvuiusly you can only use one if yiu have outside space, we have a caddy on the counter snd the actual food waste bin outside (away from the house so mice dont get attracted), we empty the caddy at least once a day.

1. Foxes treat bin day as an all you can eat buffet, our London ones can open the bins even though they are sort of locked, but the bin men do seem to clear the mess up if it's on a public road. It's pretty gross.

I don't have anywhere in the kitchen for an indoor caddy. It would have to go next to clean pots/dishes or on the work surface, both of which are dreadful ideas.