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!

We don't have food waste bins. We have a paved courtyard so we have no use for compost. What we do have are seagulls and the last thing the town needs is more food put out for them.

But it would still be out if it's going in the general waste? In fact it would make more mess if seagulls or foxes got in, because there would be more rubbish to scatter around getting to the food. Our food bin has a sealed lid, and there is no bin provided for general rubbish, so that is often just in bin bags.

you can get sealed compost bins, with a bottom part (not just open on the ground) which may help your problem.

That’s what I had? No idea how flies knew what was in there? We have 40deg heat in summer and often hot for a lot of spring/autumn? Maybe fumes permeate the plastic (but it was VERY thick) and attract the flies etc? They were no maggots at all IN the bin, just all over the outside. Weird and gross. Never again.

Sorry, no idea why I placed question mark after first sentence. Not a question, I know what I had and it was as you describe.

No food waste collection here - it has to go in general waste.

I used to have a compost bin, but we had too many rats (and I have chickens so I don't need rats encouraging).

We are rural East Mids. Recycling is poor.

I've only lived in one place that had food waste recycling, and I have moved a lot!

What are you all doing to lobby your councils to provide this

I did mention it on the phone when I rang up to ask for a bigger black bin. The woman said she would 'log my comment. I'm afraid otherwise my priority is complaining about the shit show of health care provision in our area and trying to find a school my son can go to.

Our council have discontinued food waste collections and instructed us to use the black bin. I don't agree with the policy and plan to get a green cone or similar. The food waste bins were regularly raided by foxes though - clever buggers could unlock them!

Presume you eat no beef/dairy then OP?

We can put any food, cooked and uncooked in our food waste bin. It also stops seagulls, magpies and anything else ripping black bags and making a mess. Any uncooked fruit, veg and eggshells go in our garden compost bin.

Methane is harvested from rotting waste and used to make electricity. We don't have enough space for completely renewable energy and I hate nuclear energy.

Electric have you taken it up with them?

I live in the dark ages. We don’t even have a glass/tin bin here let alone food waste! Only bins we have are cardboard and garden waste, have to take the rest to a recycling plant if you can be arsed.

We have only one bin - The Grey Bin of all Waste.

We do have our own compost heap which we use for green waste so fruit, veg, egg shells etc can go in that and we recycle taking paper, plastic, cans and glass to the recycling centre.

The dog is good for recycling meat waste!

We don't have food waste bins. We have a paved courtyard so we have no use for compost. What we do have are seagulls and the last thing the town needs is more food put out for them.

We have a major seagull problem in my city. Having the foodwaste caddies has actually improved the issue as the seagulls can't get into them and they have seemingly become bored of attacking the rubbish bags as there's no food in them.

We don’t have a food waste bin, and live in a block of flats so don’t have a garden so I can’t compost the compostable stuff either.

We meal plan carefully to minimise waste, but something you just can’t help (bones, eggs shells, banana peels etc.)

Electric yes, they do sound a special treat.

However, whilst you have taken this up with them I think it's fair to say that probably a lot of people don't/haven't - so they'll blame their council for not providing a service (or removing it) and in effect blame them for their lack of food recycling (in this instance) but not actually remonstrate with the council itself - because, in many cases, they don't want to pay more council tax, failing to see the correlation between monies paid and quality/quantity of services. Some people really do need this pointing out. Just as the OP needs it pointing out that this is not the most pressing point when it comes to methane emissions (but is she prepared to make the most significant change that could reduce methane emissions?)

Our council gave us all two caddy bins a small one for inside and a larger one for outside which we decant into and it gets collected every other week.

@WTFIsAGleepglorp I’m impressed you keep food waste in the freezer until bin day, great idea if you have no other option and your bins are visited by flies etc.

@garybaldbiscuit proper compost bins don’t attract rats/vermin. The compost comes in really handy for the garden - improves soil quality and can also be used in pots etc to reduce the cost of buying compost. It’s a really interesting process and quite addictive when you get into composting haha .

Some areas still offer free garden compost bins or have community compost bins available at allotments, community gardens etc. It’s a good way to get young kids interested in the cycle of nature and thinking about food waste.

It goes in our green bin with garden stuff. I am about what is worse about putting food waste in the green bin than the black though, no sense at all in that. I'm sure black bins can also grow maggots.

There's nothing you can do if your council don't offer them, no wonder our environments fucked
Yep, and it’s worse than that. We DO have food waste bins in our area but, over last summer, the bin men for the local contractor responsible for waste removal were photographed (by members of the public) chucking the food waste bins in with the landfill on four separate routes. The public were vocal in their response to the local papers but ultimately the council did nothing other than assure them it wasn’t policy and wouldn’t happen again. Yeah, right.

No food waste recycling and no use for a compost bin ( and one more thing for my disabled son to mess with).

"What are you all doing to lobby your councils to provide this"

My lobbying time is spent on trying to get my son's basic needs met. How much lobbying are you doing to get adequate provision for people like my son?

I have begun to compost kitchen scraps using Bokashi bran. It's taken me since the beginning of the summer to get myself organised with it. You can compost all food waste, including bones, eggshells, and meat. The bran 'pickles' the scraps so they break down quickly when you bury it in your soil factory or compost bin.

I found that I got a lot of blue bottle larvae at first and the smell of the scraps is rank when you come to bury them, but the actual compost it produces does smell very rich and good after a month to rot down.

You don't need a lot of space, but you do need an outdoor area. I have a kitchen caddy and a large cardboard box full of used compost as my soil factory. The final compost goes onto the flowerbeds.

bokashiliving.com/make-simple-soil-factory/

OP - Seems like you should be directing your frustration at the councils who don’t offer this service rather than at individuals, who without the council’s service being available probably can’t do it. It’s all well and good if you have a garden, but if you don’t then there’s not much you can do about it?

I had to stop composting because it attracted rats.
I would love to know how to avoid that.