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?

Karma for your previous post

Ours is absolutely fine - I really can’t understand the amount of online frothing caused by these bins. The policy for ‘simpler recycling’ which brought in universal food waste collection was actually a Conservative one under Rishi Sunak - nothing to do with labour or Ed Milliband but hey don’t let that stop the outrage. I put the handle right down in the front to lock it (as per the instructions) and so far zero fox incidents.. I rinse out both the outside and inside caddies after emptying them and no smells/maggots etc

I do all that. But it is still full of nam pla and now someone else’s puke.

Goodness OP, that’s some shockingly bad luck you've been having with this.

Yes. But living next door to a pub probably doesn’t help.

I don’t use ours

But I do wonder how the hell flies are getting in if you have the lid locked shut? Is there a gap round the lid even when shut?

They’re getting into the compost bags. Fruit flies lay eggs and boom.

No flies at the last collection but the contents are still putrefying in this heat.

Ok, so the flies must be getting into the compost bags while the bag is still in your kitchen (as the outdoor bin is lockable)?

if that’s so then you need a better sealing inside caddy

Sprinkle salt in the compost bin for the maggots and cinnamon for the flies - they hate the smell.

After collection, leave the caddy open and the birds will have any leftover maggots!

How? My kitchen caddy is always shut and the outdoor bin the bags go in is also always locked shut. Keep everything airtight and flies can’t get in to lay eggs.

edit for typo

Yes and I won’t use it . We have an insinkerator and a compost heap

I’m using one I bought as the cat could open the provided indoor one
still got fruit flies so I’ve stopped using it while the weather is hot

this one so it’s a decent sealed but I opened it and a load of fruit flies came out which are bastards to get rid of
https://amzn.eu/d/0hRA8Kmx

Ours has been great. We dont, however, have problems with foxes, dogs and cat have no interest in it and the outside one is kept in the shade. In fact last week there was a mix up and ds brought in the uncollected bin. Luckily I saw them, had a lovely chat with the bloke collecting who was surprised mine wasnt out. Told him where it was and he said he'd collect it from there if I ever forgot.
Unlike the guy across the road, saw him taking his big bin in and said that food waste hadn't been round yet. He then ranted at me that there was no such thing(bin by his foot) then it was a conspiracy(for what) and that the council was getting us to do their jobs for them(I doubt they are picking out eggshells and mouldy crusts from your big bin mate) I backed away slowly.

They are a recent innovation here. They are fairly minging with fungus (never had maggots) but we compost our veg waste separately (and the composter does have loads of flies as well as the lovely worms) so it's just raw meat and food leftovers which is frankly minging from the beginning.

We've just come back after a fortnight long holiday. On Monday the teens were home alone and discovered that we had forgotten to empty the inside food waste bin before going away. DH and I were sent photos of our eldest wearing a Covid era mask and marigolds in the garden as she emptied it. She said there was a puff of fungal spores when she opened it. I don't think we'll ever forget that again.

I have to open the caddy to put food waste into the food waste caddy. The fruit flies are hovering and boom.

Your eldest is a hero ⭐️

We’ve never had flies or maggots in our food waste, and we’ve had food waste bins for years now.

But any scraps,of meat or fish (and there are only ever scraps) go in a bag in the freezer until the night before the bin men come.

Apparently bluebottles can smell any dead meat or fish from a mile away.

Top tip, don't use compostable bags. They still take a while to decompose and don't help with making quality compost. When the contractor processes food waste they use hooks to pull out any plastic waste of any type.
Therefore, regular bags are fine to use and you'll get no seepage into your bin.

Hate ours stinks , flies rats and foxes trying to get them due to the lack of natural food at the moment . I’m disabled , it’s difficult to use so I won’t. It’s not compulsory. We live rurally.

We have had these food waste bins for over 15yrs and never experienced any of these issues.🤔

Small caddy sits in the kitchen lined with a biodegradable bag (supplied by the LA). When it is full, top of the bag is tied and the (sealed) bag is put into the larger outside food waste bin (which is unlined). Come collection day, the bin is emptied and in the unlikely event that these is any residue in it, I give it a quick wipe out.

No flies or smells.
Works well for us.,👍

Just put a brick or a rock on the lids. It’s easy enough to do. I really like them because they’re collected weekly so they stop the stench and bin juice festering in the big bin for two weeks. They’ve also made me think harder about reducing food waste which can’t be a bad thing.

We have had ours for 3 weeks now. One partially filled bag each week. We were away yesterday for collection and the bag from last Thursday is still in the outside caddy. No maggots, no smells.
Really pleased with it.

The seepage is better now that the weather is cooler.