Is your Ed Miliband compostable food waste caddy a health hazard?

[AndyBurkhamstocks]

On the government directive our local council has taken away our landfill bins and replaced them with 1 tiny landfill bin and a compost food waste caddy which is removed on a weekly basis for burning.

I have put a (compostable) bag of food waste in the council food waste bin and bloody hell, it’s a sea of maggots and live flies. I feel sorry for the bin people who have to collect this stuff on Thursday. I have already drained out the liquid before a previous collection and I wash and dry the caddy after each collection but f me, the only way to stop the food waste from putrefying in this heat is to keep it in the fridge .

Am I the only one f ing this up? How do you stop the liquefaction of your food waste and a potential cholera outbreak?

Our brown bin is food waste and garden waste combined. The food waste must be 1-2% of the bin. We empty the kitchen caddy daily. No issues.

I hate them. We've had them for years and I dread the summer.
I hadn't thought of putting it in the fridge!

We have used a caddy for 20 years with no issues. In the heat you obviously need to empty it more frequently.

I got a food waste caddy more than a decade ago under a Conservative government and at the behest of a Conservative local authority. I wonder how Labour ones are any different.

We have had ours at least 10 years and it's fine

I am not sure how or why the food in a food waste bin ends up any different to food put into your landfill bin.

If you've managed ok putting it into your kitchen bin all these years, then I'm sure you'll manage with putting it all in a separate receptacle.

For us it's the outside food caddy that gets filled with maggots between council collections. We can't empty it ourselves.

I'm pretty sure it's because of immigrants. Probably if you come over on a small boat you don't have to have a food waste bin 🤣

We got ours a few weeks ago. Not doing well in the heat.

I think they're grim and will attract rats

We’ve had a food waste collection for years, nothing to do with Miliband. We’ve never had a problem with flies and maggots even in the hottest weather. We have a small bin in the kitchen with a compostable bin liner, we tie that up and put it in the collection bin, which has a closed lid that locks shut. If flies can’t get in there will be no maggots.

Also... i am pretty sure the idea is to encourage people to produce less food waste and think about what they're buying and using a bit more.
Maybe your maggots will help with that

Ed Milliband only wanted to roll out the solar powered food waste caddies.

Why would they attract rats more than having food in a regular landfill bin?

We've used ours for at least 5 years now (lib dem brought them in here - for balance)
Had no issues at all. They get emptied every week and prevent the big wheely bin getting "bin juice", so I'm all for it.

We empty small indoor caddy every day or 2, outdoor caddy is a bit smelly at the end of a hot week, but we rinse it out after the waste is collected.

Not if they can’t get in the sealed bin. We’ve never had a problem.

Not to me I’ve never used it. 🙄

Had them here for over 20 years. Put the food waste out daily. If it is really hot I keep stuff in the fridge until bin day if I can.No maggots. The waste is composted not burned, btw. No rats either.

genuine question - where is this new? I’ve had one for over 10 years in 5 different local councils all over the uk!

I buy cheap disinfectant out of savers and place a drop in the bin after it’s been collected or ‘ bin buddy ‘ which is a deodorizer for bins after I’ve cleaned it out.
They collect our caddy’s really early too and it’s weekly , but in hot weather it can attract flies occasionally.
Just keep it closed up.

My Labour Welsh, possibly in coalition with Plaid Cymru at time of issue, bin, has never done this either in the 20 or so years I've had it. This did happen to me once as a student in Germany when I foolishly left the bin with fish in it in direct sunlight for days. I didn't do it again. I was glad it affected only a small bin, easy to clean, rather than a big one. I don't know whether the good guys or the bad guys distributed my German bin.

I don't think my food waste caddy belongs to Ed Milliband....

Anyway, no issues with maggots or flies, or lots of liquid.

Surely the exact same food waste would have been in your rubbish bin beforehand, and would have had maggots and flies in there too? Our food waste collections are now weekly, whereas the main rubbish collection is fortnightly so the food waste is actually being removed more frequently now. That would presumably be the same for you to, @AndyBurkhamstocks ?

No, they were brought in recently here, we paid for a green garden bin, so we and everyone else who has done the same in the street continues to put their food in there. The brown caddy had maggots after 3 days.

They all go in the same bin lorry.

This is what I mean. We have two separate bins. One is for food waste. I have an inside caddy which is sealed. When that’s full I take it out, tie a knot in the bag and put it in the outside caddy. This is the one which is suffering and this is the one which Biffa will be emptying in a couple of days.

Where I live some parts of the county have only just got them but our bit has had them for at least 10 years, maybe nearly 20, I can't remember.