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?

Caddy and outdoor food bin here for at least 12 years. Never had maggots (touch wood). Liner for indoor caddy, knot it, put in outdoor bin. The outdoor one should have a lockable lid but we're on the second one of those and the lock breaks easily. Still, as long as the lid stays down it's not an issue.

Because my local council blamed the incumbent government policy on their own Facebook page when they requisitioned our large black bins earlier this year.

That’s great. And that is what I do. The lid firmly goes down on my indoor caddy and then I tie a k it and put it in the outdoor caddy.

I freeze any food waste and put it in the outdoor caddy at the last minute. I've had to be more careful about what I compost because we've had a plague of rats this year.

😂😂😂😂😂👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

These have been around for years so not sure what Ed Milliband has to do with anything. No problems with ours. What’s the design of your outside bin? When we pull the handle up on both the inside and outside it automatically locks.

An Ed Milliband bin where food is Incinerated and only then turned into compost.

I've honestly tried to understand this thread but what in God's name is all this bollocks?

I don’t use ours, revolting.

Also in a South Wales council area that is amongst the best in the UK (but on the coast). It sounds very much like yours. I'm proud of the fact that Wales is tied with Austria in leading a global table of waste recycling rates.

We've had compost bin collections for many years and we've never, ever had maggots. I don't understand why so many people are having a problem with it. I'm not trying to be superior, I genuinely don't understand why there should be such a difference in people's experience between councils. Is it the quality of the bins the councils provide? We change our kitchen compost bin every 2-3 days. The outside compost bin, which has a handle which locks the bin, is collected every week. Occasional bit of bin juice if we haven't been careful and made a hole when putting the compost waste in but no maggots or evidence of rats. We do have to be very careful to tie our black bin bags up properly or the bloody seagulls will get at them.

However, I've not forgiven my eldest daughter for borrowing my lovely large leather shoulder bag once. She forgot that she had the remains of a sandwich in it and shoved it in the corner of her bedroom, which is where many items went to die. Weeks later I was nearly sick when I retrieved it and was confronted by a wriggling mass of maggots. I miss that bag!

We can now put bottles in our blue recycling bin, until a few weeks ago had to take them to bottle banks. Progress in Oxfordshire.
Paid for Garden Bin, Land fill/non recycling All are two weeks except Food waste which is weekly.

We have been putting out bottles in the recycling bins for decades, and garden waste is collected weekly free, here in South Wales . Everything except black bins weekly. Glad your services are improving - it does make a big difference

We have an old ice cream container in the fridge and store food waste in this. Our bins go out the night before for an early morning collection, so we just empty the fridge container into the collection bin. Never had a problem with flies or smells or even foxes raiding the bin.
Peelings and veg and fruit waste goes in the compost bin at the end of the garden. Also no problem ever with this and lovely compost for the garden once a year.

I just tipped food waste juice out of the caddy and on to my foot when putting the bins out. That has never happened to me before and I fully blame this thread

We’ve had food waste bins for years, both the kitchen caddy and the outside bin. I’ve never had trouble with flies or maggots, but that’s probably because any scraps of meat or fish - the things that are bound to attract flies* - go in a bag in the freezer until the night before the bin men come.

*apparently bluebottles can smell anything dead - so any meat or fish - from a mile away!

Scrolling down I keep reading this as “Is your Ed Miliband compostable?”And I want to reply “Yes, isn’t yours?”

Oooh interesting - this would be a new one on me! Interesting to hear about how seemingly random the food waste caddy take up has been across different local authorities.

weirdly my green bin is now not and actual green coloured bin which seems deeply wrong

It's weird. I was quite happy putting food waste in our green bin (which is actually green!). Now we aren't allowed to. I thought our council was pretty good for recycling etc, and this change seems to have been imposed.

Wheelie bin colours are mad. No consistency, ours are
Green = landfill
Grey = recycling
Brown = garden waste

We are
black= landfill
brown = garden
blue = recycling
green = food waste

Yes they do this in our area too. Burn the food waste first then turn it into compost.

My food waste bin was immediately put in the plastic recycling bin and what is not eaten by pets is put in the kitchen bin and then in the landfill bin. I refuse to use such an unhygienic contraption.

No. It's kept in the garage so never gets too hot and doesn't smell. We're mostly veggie so rarely have meat or fish in it.

I just lie the empty caddy on it's side in the front garden so the slugs can eat the crumbs and stuck on bits once a week. Why waste my time cleaning it when nature will happily get on with it.

😢

We are:

Black: landfill
Green: garden waste
Grey: recycling

Also grey: food waste

Oh I’ll raise you
green = landfill
small grey= food waste

And …
White bag = cardboard and paper (2separate areas in the bag)
Blue bag = plastic and metal
Blue box = glass
We can also put batteries in a small clear bag ans small appliances in a dufferent bag again (Not provided)

I dream for wheelie bins. Everything bar the normal Green bin is regularly flying around when it’s windy!