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?

I put vegetable peelings and teabags in the compost container and the rest of any food waste will go into the bags with the used cat litter and into the regular bin as usual. I'm not going to be using their food waste bin.

Blessings of living in a flat and putting the kitchen black bin in the communal everyday. I don’t even have to think about rubbish collections days or what goes where.

In this weather I keep a large Tupperware in the freezer, and put all the food waste in there as it arises. On bin day, I just have a large block of frozen scraps to put out. It’s probably not even defrosted by the time it gets collected. Bin is always washed after collection with hot soapy water, but it’s never too bad.

I find these bags are a bit stronger.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Biodegradable-Countertop-Bin-Aievrgad-Recycled-degradable/dp/B08NYF84R6/ref=sr_1_4_sspa

And it's nothing to to with Ed Miliband. Particularly if you are in Sevenoaks, no Labour influence there!

I do wipe it, wash it and air dry it outside every time Biffa have emptied it.

Any meat goes in my freezer ( tied up in the compost bag) until food bin day. Seems to halt the worst of the flies.

Mine don’t. The liquid is still in the bottom of the caddy when I go to bring it back to the kitchen door. A bag also ripped one time so they left that in the caddy for me to rebag and for them to collect a week later.

Had these for many years and not a maggot to be seen. Tightly seal/knot each bag and keep the lid shut properly. Place bags upright in bin to prevent leaking bin juice.

I do not understand the endless online fake drama surrounding this bog standard set up. It feels like it's the latest version of 'the EU want straight bananas' nonsense. Food waste is food waste whether it's in a big traditional bin from the 1970s or a dreaded 'woke' food disposal bin.

My tip is also to put a piece of kitchen roll in the base of the compost caddy with peppermint oil on it.

We had maggots once when it was very hot, around the cat food waste.

It doesn't sound as if your council wants this policy to work, does it?

I got myself a lidded bucket from Amazon and empty our food waste into that. It’s kept by our back door and emptied every other day into our compost bin. The roses and rhubarb love it !!

Where do you all live that
A) is so backwards its only started doing this
B) has so many flies to create all these maggots?
In over 15 years never had a single maggot. Buy bags from aldi. Lasts ages. Clean out bin every now and again.

My council have been doing it for ages, but flies and maggots are a thing.
The bins lock, but flies lay eggs on the very edges and maggots still end up on the actual waste.
It has not been a problem since I kept meat/bones in my fridge until the bins are collected.

We have had them for years very ten years, never had Maggots. I am double bagging in this heat. Before we had them we put food garden waste and no prob with that either. Makes black bin less smelly too.

We don’t have a huge amount of food waste., and store most of it in an old Tupperware box in the fridge. When I have a huge amount of waste- usually bones after making chicken stock I wrap it and shove it in the freezer until the night before collection.
i don’t use food waste bags often, i tend to go for wrapping it in newspaper, fish and chip shop style most if the time. Anything that might seep out goes in the biodegradable bags.
we’ve had food waste bins for about 10 years, never heard of rats or foxes getting into the outside food waste bins. Unlike the black bags we have for non recycled waste, which is fairly regular. We are fairly rural, so plenty of scavengers around.

We've had them issued very recently. We have barely any food waste - last week it was the bones from the chicken carcass and a crust that had gone mouldy in the bread bin. I tied each in one of the compostable bags we received with the bin and then put them outside straightaway. No flies,no maggots. peelings and coffee grounds etc. go on the compost heap.

How does keeping the bag upright make a difference when the contents leak out of the bag itself through osmosis?

@AndyBurkhamstocks all you are doing is separating the food from the rest of your waste. If it was in the black bin then it would still rot and attract maggots, but you wouldn't notice it as much.

That said, we have been recycling food waste for at least 10 years and only get maggots about once a year. Flies can only get in to lay eggs if the lid isn't on properly.

Our council recently changed political parties and the new lot (who are not Labour for the record) have been very disappointing on multiple levels.

Here has been Conservative for like ever.
And we’ve just had a good waste bin.

Nothing to do with politics, right left and what not

My parents have had one since I was living at home, must be 20 yrs. I’ve had one my whole adult life. I’ve never seen maggots in any of them!
Maybe because they were introduced in my parents’ area which has been Tory since the beginning of time - must be better than Milliband’s ones 🙄

We've had food waste for years, I've only ever seen maggots once in the outside caddy. A quick rinse with the hose and some bleach sorted it. Ours goes to an anaerobic digester which turns it into methane and then electricity

I am absolutely wiped out on migraine meds and read this as "Is Ed Milliband Compostable?". Thank you for giving me a good chuckle on a day when I feel pretty much like a maggoty food waste bin myself.

Our food bin - newly arrived this year from a Conservative controlled council since every seems interest in each bin's political affiliation - is a bit stinky in the heat but no maggots - yet. Caddy is emptied regularly enough it isn't an issue at all - we've been collecting veg peelings etc in a little caddy for home compost for years with no problems either. Keep lids closed and empty the caddy regularly. I like the bins - it's good to be able to keep the volume of our landfill waste down even more.

I don't think maggots are a problem as such, as long as are contained to a bin outside, away from foodstuffs, and don't get to play in your fridge etc. I have a fun story about that if anyone is interested...

So I have a question for you.
Our council is freely giving us compostable bags for food waste. Except that if you put anything in the bag that is slightly ‘wet’, the bag dissolves.

i dint mind buy compostable bags that will withstand liquids. But which ones?
Would you have any advice/recommendations on good compostable bags?

I can’t wait for Ed to meet up with Trump! I can’t see that going well. Maybe he’ll take over a caddy as a gift ? Painted red of course