To consider giving up on food recycling because of fox incursion

[CarlaH]

I am just fed up with coming out in the morning to find our food waste strewn all over the road. We have to put our bins out the evening before as we can never tell when the binmen will come. At the moment they are coming mid morning but they did that before so we started putting our food waste bins out later only for them to return to coming at 6am.

We construct a sort of boxed in arrangement with our other bins because the fox had realised that if we sandwiched the food bin between two other bins it could push it out. Last night I couldn't see any way it could push the bin but still this morning the food bin was on its side on the pavement and the food was everywhere.

We could secure it with a bungee cord but having seen the way the binmen behave I doubt they would be willing to spend the time to wrestle it off and would probably chuck it away as well. They literally walk down the road, empty the food bins into a large bin and then hurl, and I mean hurl, the empty bin on to the pavement or road. I think that as a result of that treatment our bin closure mechanism isn't as robust as it might be.

Any ideas?

I've seen people put them on top of the wheelie bins but if it's windy you run the risk of food everywhere.

Personally I don't bother. Food rots wherever it goes. I think if the council gave me a discount on council tax so they could use my food waste then I might.

I've noticed that some people put the food bins on top of the other bins but I really think the fox wouldn't have any problem jumping up and knocking it off at which point I would expect the bin to break.

I am actually very happy to do the recycling but not if I am going to have to go out most weeks and try and clear the mess.

Can you ring the council and ask them to provide a more robust receptacle? Or keep it to make your own compost?

Our council is bankrupt so I am fairly sure that won't work. I don't fancy the rats that can come with using food waste for compost.

Thanks for responding though.

Our brown food waste box locks by pushing the handle right over the back of the box - we’ve never had issues with our foxes being able to get past that

Food bins should lock

I’ve seen people hook them over fence posts, or pop a couple of bricks on top?

We found that the foxes were less interested when we stopped putting egg shells in. Still a bit hit and miss, but they started going for our neighbours more!

Our box has a locking mechanism as well but our fox has obviously worked out how to push it up and over. With ours you push the handle over the front.

I think once the box is on its side it's probably not that hard to release.

Our food bin locks using the handle as well. I live in semi rural area and have never had problems.

Do you put chicken caracasses/ bones in the food bin? We had far fewer problems with foxes since we stopped putting those in.

Ours locked with the handle, but it was a bit rickety, and I've seen a fox full on body slam it over to try and knock it open before.

foxes can unlock them - always have at least one bin ransacked near me.

As above i don't put any meat waste, just veg really.

We do sometimes have chicken carcasses but not this week. I have just checked our council website and they will not allow bins of a different design which is a pain because I have seen some bins where there is a push button to release.

As above. We had to stop putting meat waste of any kind in there.

That might be a solution, to put the fish/meat waste in our general bin and just keep the food bin for veg and fruit waste. We could maybe freeze it so that it doesn't stink too much.

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that.

We gave up. Even with a brick on top of the locked food caddy, they were getting in..so it just goes in the green bin with everything else...which I felt guilty about until I saw the bin men just tip the food waste into the same bit of the lorry as the general waste!

Oh and we didn't put meat waste out...but we do get through a lot of eggs so maybe that was the issue!

Could you put the food bin inside one of your wheelie bins?

My brother stopped recycling food due to foxes. I would stop too.

I feel your pain, I don’t blame you for not wanting to grovel about hand-clearing rotting food every week.

I don’t use the food waste bins. I use my own compost heap for veggie waste and I’m afraid meat and fish goes in the landfill bin. This is not ideal but as far as I’m concerned the council havent given us a workable way of collecting all food waste so I’m composting what’s safe in my garden (without encouraging rats) and fuck the rest. (There is not much rest tho - the vast majority get composted)

imo offering workable solutions for the majority of waste would make more sense than this

I mean why not have a community veggie compost heap - less transport, actual compost for allotments etc - and let people throw the rest in the bins

So that’s what my brother was doing and the foxes just knocked them off.

We have a brown box for food waste and the handle locks it, this one has the handle upright.

How is your food waster box?

We have a crow on our road that takes the packaging out of the plastics boxes, it’s annoying it not as messy as good waste being spread over the pavement.

I spray my bin with citrus antibacterial spray (mandarin flash spray for example that I buy for cleaning the kitchen) when I put it out and this seems to help deter foxes and cats from trying to get to it. And I do put my bin when I leave for my night shift so it’s out for quite a few hours….

Same, and we have a lot of foxes around here. We have at least one in the garden every night. I only know because I sleep badly so when I see the security light come on I look out and there is Fred Fox on his rounds.

Really appreciate all the comments. I have heard and then seen the fox doing the pushing of the bin when going to bed at night which is why we tried boxing it in with other bins. I still have no idea how on earth it managed to extract it from the location we put it in. Maybe it pulled it out using the handle. My partner is fed up with having to do the jenga thing anyway so would be glad to be able to stop it.

I had been thinking of putting a large stone on top but the truth is that the bin men really do use any excuse not to empty the bins if they can find one. From what Panicmode1 says it might not work anyway.

The idea of spraying the waste with something is a good one so might try that as well as not putting any meat/fish waste out.