To not see the need for food waste bins?

[Notinmylifethyme]

I mean the plastic bins councils supply where excess cooked food is dumped.

I live on a budget. I cook. Veg scraps go in a composter (I have a garden so obviously referring to my situation). I sometimes batch cook. I rework leftovers. I use my freezer. Basically, it doesn't really matter how much I cook, we only put on our plates what we are going to eat.

Am I so unusual? My council are about to spend a couple of million on food waste bins. I'm quite shocked by it.

My food bin contains teabags, peels, egg shells, gone off or manky bits of food, bones. I don't have room to compost.

Chicken carcass? Not sure you’d put that on your compost heap. Rind from steak. Hardened fat. Any other meat based but inedible items, that’s generally what goes in my food waste caddy (along with eggshells, veg peelings, teabags that I appreciate are compostable but I don’t have a compost bin) so plenty of items that fill my bin each week that I would not in any way constitute as food “waste”

Composters attract vermin and unless you’re a gardener, people have no need for the compost. Council food waste bins are a fabulous idea to keep food waste out of landfill. Strange thing to get narked about!

Lots of people don't have gardens. Lots do have gardens, but not the type that need compost (all lawn). Lots have gardens that need compost but no space to store scraps long enough for them to turn into decent compost.

Sure, ideally people would reduce their food waste as much as possible, but most people (yourself included - chicken bones!) will have some and it's far better it gets turned into soil improver than goes to landfill!

You are speaking from a place of privilege and don’t even realise it. Many people don’t have gardens. People with gardens working all hours don’t have time to compost.

You obviously have land and time. Congratulations.

The new bins will probably cost your council less than they are currently paying to put food waste in landfill..

Ah, another council-bashing thread. Well, there’s a surprise.

Our council uses the food and garden waste to make compost AFAIK and it's the sold.

We hardly ever throw out actual food, but still use the food bin quite a bit - egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit skins that you wouldn't eat (banana, orange, kiwi), bones, leaves that you get on some veg eg cauliflower, and some plate scrapings if we've not quite eaten what was on the plate (not loads of waste but little bits not quite finished).

Ours is 3 weekly and we don't have wheelie bins, just bags. Can you imagine the smell, flies, rats, seagulls etc

The majority of things that we put in is food waste like stones & peel from fruit. Some of it, though, is wasted food like the leftover not particularly nice beetroot risotto (which itself was only made as we had half a bunch of beetroot left) and which no one was going to eat again or the packet of ham which I found earlier at the back of the fridge which was best before 5th Feb or the carrots which were on the last supermarket order and already had one rotting and the rest tasted a bit off.
If we aim for no waste other than peel, stones and similar then all that happens is that I eat a bizarre combination of the other household member's rejects and I'm not prepared to martyr myself like that.

I like the food waste bin as it means that I only put out my main bin every few months. Everything else is recycled or food waste.

I have one of those. All was good until a rat decided to make its home underneath it!

Sending food waste to landfill costs money, whereas selling it for use in an incinerator makes money. As such, your council is showing great fiscal responsibility. 👏

Mmmm….not so sure about the chicken bones in the compost, boiled or not.

We had a proper compost bin , in which we put only the RHS approved stuff : peelings, cooked veg scraps ( no meat or fish or other high protein waste) carefully layered with grass trimmings and shredded paper. The rat family who set up home next to it were VERY grateful.

It was better in the compost bin in France, we only had a snake. ( probably not venomous🐍)

I'm on a budget, large family get a veg box every week which reduces plastic packaging but means more food waste of the skins/rinds etc.

Not a chance we could have a garden compost bin, too many rats, mice and ASBO neighbours who don't believe in using any bins and thus the whole street is decorated in their waste nightly by foxes and vermin.

You do you

Do you want a medal OP?

We had a composter, we got rats. No more composter. I would love a food bin.

I fill a bag each week, so about half the bin size

potato peelings, banana skins, coffee grounds
coffee grounds
food scrapes from plates
bones
anything that’s has gone off

my Black bin I fill in about 12/15 weeks

fill my recycling bin every two weeks

Like you we try not to waste food but there is always stuff that ends up in the food bin. A few slices of bread past its best, chicken bones, fish skin, egg shells, leftovers boxed up in the fridge that got forgotten, out of date herbs and spices...

We do have a composter which takes uncooked fruit and veg peel etc but it gets too full in the winter when it's too cold to mulch down properly so for several months of the year fruit and veg peel goes in the food waste.

For those who suffered rats in their dalek composers, the "hot box" ones are much better for this reason and also more efficient at composting.

I’m stunned there are still places without a food waste bin! My council does
food waste
mixed tin and hard plastic
glass
cardboard
paper
batteries
All with their own receptacles. It’s a bit of a pain and I don’t really have space (small terraced cottage) but I make it work. These are all collected weekly (though obviously I don’t put all of them out every week as they aren’t full, but I could if I wanted).
Anything else is black bags collected 3 weekly (max of 3 per house). If you want to recycle soft plastics there are bins at most of the supermarkets.
The only bit that really pisses me off is that you have to pay for garden waste to be collected and it’s the same price up to 8 of the provided bags per fortnight. I have a small garden and make maybe 1 every month, tops. It’s really not fair.

There was a thread on here ages ago by someone who said that people who ate and cooked "properly" generated no food waste. There were then a zillion posts of people saying but what about egg shells/ orange peel/ potato peelings/ bones/ banana skins. But OP never came back.

OP. Because it's not all about you and your situation

Ok but it's not just cooked food is it it's everything- veg peelings, eggshells for example, I even put biodegradable straws in ours

@Iluwn im sorry you are so offended. I did say I was referring to my situation. Yes, I live in a house and have a garden. I'm not apologising for that. 90% of my home town is such.

But I will add that a friend of mine lives in a flat with a balcony. On said balcony is a composter, which she uses constantly and has no need to buy compost for her beautiful summer floral displays.

It can be a choice.

We have very little food waste, all the peelings, tea bags and things go in the compost, bones in the fire if it's on and most leftovers get used next day. We have the food bins and I actually use ours to keep bits for the compost until they get added to the heap. Very few people around here seem to use them, hardly any get put out for collection and I have seen the bin men just chuck the content in with the main rubbish, not sure they are always organised to collect them properly.

I think it's more aspirational in a way, we shouldn't waste this stuff, and at least people are learning to recycle food waste, but it wouldn't be top of my to do list for an apparently bankrupt council.