To ask you not to put food waste in your bin?

[AngryMarshmallows]

I see so many people putting food waste into their general waste bin, don't do it!

Your food then goes to landfill, rots and releases damaging methane.

Please, please, use your food waste bin!

No garden or food collection here. Our council won't even take glass recycling

No food waste bin here though we do have a compost heap in the garden.

We have one black bin collected fortnightly, and recycling boxes (cardboard, cans and plastic) collected fortnightly as well.

Food waste goes in the black bin unless you compost it yourself.

No food waste bin here either. But we do have a dog and chickens so between them they eat pretty much all the waste.

Nah I'm good how I am thanks love

@Garybaldbiscuit I totally agree. People should also be looking at how much food they throw away. We hardly throw any food away. Our kids are given sensible portions and expected to finish their meal. We eat leftovers another day. We compost any veg or fruit peelings, throw any crusts of bread or fish skins on the lawn and they are eaten in minutes by the birds.

I am constantly appalled at how much food is thrown away in other people's houses.

I am constantly appalled at how much food is thrown away in other people's houses

I agree. The average amount of food thrown away by the average family in the UK is £810 per year according to WRAP, which to me seems ridiculously high, even if it is a massive overestimate, which it simply has to be - that's over £15 a week.

I would be surprised if we throw away even £1 worth of food each week, the odd bit of fruit or salad that goes off before we get round to eating it. I try to buy the right amount, and put things about to go out of date in the freezer, use them up, or simply ignore the use by date. Cheese, cream, yogurt etc is fine for a couple of weeks after the date, cheese for months usually if sealed.

If that stat is anywhere near right, people must be repeatedly buying food, ignoring it and then putting it straight in the bin, which is madness. So careful buying is key, after all, it is reduce, reuse (ie use your leftovers) then recycle aka compost.

We don't have glass collection either, but we do have a communal bin in the village so we just collect it up, stick it in the car, and bin it next time we go past the bin - the facility also has recycling facilities for clothes, shoes and small electronics.

At home we have a black non recyclable bin for waste that is incinerated
A green one for paper, card and type 1, 2 or 4 plastics, and possibly aerosols although I need to check this, it has been in the past but this might have ended.
and a brown one for garden waste.

But the council does have a good website with 'how to recycle' for hundreds of different items.

The tips have bins for batteries, coffee cups and tetra packs, so I just stick these in my car and go when passing - I think I've been 3 times this year and am trying to use my reusable cup more - I've had maybe 20-30 coffee cups this year. Which is way more than my target of zero, but about a tenth of the daily coffee shop users.

Oops, I forgot to insert obligatory disclaimer, that not everyone has a car to use as a holding and transporting facility for their recyclables, or a garden to store the multitude of bins.

I never have coffee in disposable cups. I would ban them and go back to everyone just sitting down drinking their coffee in the shop out of washable cups. Drinking on the move slows you down and leads to accidents. If you are going out and about a flask is the answer.

DD2 has metal reusable straws so she has bypassed the whole issue with paper straws which don't work. However she hasn't given up on buying overpriced concoctions in plastic cups.

I would be surprised if we throw away even £1 worth of food each week, the odd bit of fruit or salad that goes off before we get round to eating it.

Same here. I can't understand how anyone can throw away £15 per week. For us, it's usually half a lettuce and a few slices of bread so even a pound is on the high side. We plan our meals according to what perishables we have, so we have fresh for the 3/4 days after our weekly shop and then move onto frozen/longer life foods for the last couple of days before we go shopping again. I just do a very small local shop during the week just to buy bread and milk that won't last the full week.

We don’t even have separate bins only general waste and the nearest recycling bins are miles away so not possible for a lot of people to get to.. thinking about it I grew up in council flat high rises and have never had seperate bins, and considering the last estate I lived on had a few thousand flats that’s a hell of a lot of waste!