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 waste bin is for gardening waste too so it’s very useful.

So your chicken bones go to landfill? It's better to put in council food waste really isn't it where it will get used for bio energy or industrial compost?

@Notinmylifethyme we’ve had this for years and it was also the case many years ago when food waste was collected for kids. You can’t compost cooked stuff of course. Ideally you only cook ‘just enough’ but that isn’t always the case. Ours is collected, put in an anaerobic digester and used for fertiliser, I think it’s a great idea.

Gardens are small in my borough although most people have one. But there would be a massive rat problem if everyone composted.

I don't use mine that much. We have a garburator and any food/meat leftovers I feed to the fox.
We are not allowed any food stuff in our bins. If the bin men find any they will leave the bin.

Certain things don't compost well or aren't great for compost. Avocado stones and skins don't seem to compost. Meat fat or gristle. Cheese rinds. Too many egg shells. Walnuts.

Also our huge composter is currently full.

I did say I was referring to my situation. and using your situation to extrapolate that food waste bins are pointless 🤔
I have a house with a garden and choose not to compost. I used to but it ended up being a faff and as others have said, it slows down over winter and I found I was throwing out food scraps anyway. So, I really appreciate the council food waste bins, especially as ours will also take waste cooking oil.

‘
’ we’ve had this for years and it was also the case many years ago when food waste was collected for kids. ‘

That’s a bit hard! Even Oliver Twist had proper porridge, though not enough of it.

This.

In my food waste bin are:
Uneaten cat food (fussy cat)
Chicken bones
Fat from stewing steak
Grisly bits from liver

I'm not buying pre prepared food just so I don't have a food waste bin.

On the issue of how it's paid for: central government provided funding last year to local authorities across the UK to roll out a food waste collection by 2026, so even in councils with budget/bankruptcy problems, this can still be funded. The food waste then goes to facilities which use giant industrial-scale composters to generate energy and fertiliser, like this: https://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/vale-of-white-horse-district-council/recycling-rubbish-and-waste/what-happens-to-your-waste-new/what-happens-to-your-food-waste/

This means a) more renewable energy being generated, and b) reducing the waste that goes into landfill, so people in your area who don't have gardens and compost bins can still dispose of their food waste in an eco-friendly way.

We have virtually no food waste in our house. Orange and banana skins mostly. Potato peel gets turned into crispy skins in the air fryer. I even use orange peel on my radiators to fragrance the house! Left overs get frozen or taken to work the next day. A lot of my fruit and veg comes from tins (lentils, tomatoes etc) or frozen (mango, cherries) so there's not waste, or at least none in my house. We barely use our food bin!

What do you do with the dried out orange peel after?

I wonder why you didn't put a poll up, you'd have got at least 3% YANBU

People don't have gardens so can't compost
People don't want to do compost, but Looe the idea of their food waste getting composted rather than going to landfill
Grape stalks
Bacon rind
Wow have you ever thought about people living different lives to you

I compost stuff like veg peel etc.
But left over food, old bread, left over dog food, bones etc still goes into my council provided bin.

I agree OP. Your local council should scrap the bin idea and use the money to buy you a massive biscuit.

Don't waste any of it mind! Or they'll burn you as a hypocrite in the waste incinerator!

I batch cook, use leftovers, don't waste food, use the freezer, all the things you do and don't why you are 'quite shocked'

The food waste bins are not only for 'excess cooked food' - for those of us who don't have a garden to use compost what are we supposed to do with onion skins, avocado stones, egg shells, fish bones, chicken bones, etc?

I've never even heard of one!

Our council was one of the pioneers of food waste caddies. We use ours all the time. Tea bags, egg shells, apple cores, banana skins, vegetable peelings, random bits of cat foot the cats haven't eaten, gristly bits off meat, blue furry clementines (lets face it, those buggers turn without warning), you name it, we put it in there.

We don't bin excess cooked food or leftovers, we eat them.

If we had a compost bin in the garden then we'd use it, but since we don't, we use the food waste bin.

I don’t use a food waste bin. I compost, and use an insinkerator, and have 2 dogs and some chickens, and there is no food waste that we produce which can’t be disposed of in one of these ways.

@Notinmylifethyme so you are suggesting people in flats rot tens of kg of veg on their balconies every year? What happens when they get too heavy or the flies and maggots start moving indoors?
As far as your own habits go, you are just dressing up “can’t be arsed to have a separate food bin” as some sort of superior way of living. You are being gross throwing your food waste in a bin designed to collect non perishables. Stop being so lazy.

My council adopted food waste bins a while ago. My boyfriend lives in a block of flats, and no one there was issued with one. Which strikes me as odd as they also don't have gardens to make use of compost in. So he gives his waste to me to put in my bin/garden.

And that’s fine. But many of us don’t need compost, don’t know what an insinkerator might be and don’t have a dog or chickens. I thought dogs shouldn’t be given chicken bones though?

We used to compost, but then got rats in the garden, coinciding with the age my DC were crawling...it just didn't feel like worth the risk and I didn't have the time then to research how to prevent rats being attracted to compost...so we stopped composting and haven't restarted.

The council have to do this due to new legislation coming in. It is mandatory for businesses employing over a certain number of people from April this year.
Food waste doesn't decompose in landfill as there's no air flow, so it just sits there. I have a garden but don't compost so am looking forward to this. Surely the only people who won't benefit will be those who never cook

We don’t have a good bin so I just chuck in tge normal bin but I don’t have much.