If you compost your veg peelings, etc, will you still do this when the council food waste collection kicks in?

[MyThreeWords]

The statutory provision of council food waste collection is coming in very shortly in most council areas, so I wondered how home composters are responding to that?

I currently compost my veg peelings and fruit waste, but my heap isn't good enough for me to compost any other food waste -- it would just lead to vermin if I tried to put other food waste in.

Until recently, I'd been assuming that I would carry on with my own veg/fruit composting when the council food waste collections come in, but it's just dawned on me what a faff that would be. Two caddies in the kitchen. Yuck. One of them decanted into my compost heap and the other into the council food bin.

Those of you who already have food waste collections, has it changed your composting habits? If you stopped adding fruit/veg waste to your own compost bin, how, if at all, did that effect the success of your compost.

Those of you who don't yet have council food waste collections but will do soon, what are your plans?

I've not used my council box yet

No. I have a large garden so have 3 compost bins I rotate. Between the dogs and the compost about all that's going into my food waste is citrus peel and bones.

I had a food waste collection for years in the UK and never used it. We compost everything.

We dont really have much other food waste.

Only 2 of us here, I batch cook and we use up leftovers for next day lunches
Bake my own bread, rolls cakes, biscuits and freeze half.
Peelings go into our compost bin

We’ve had food waste collection since before we started composting. We like the fact the food waste is now less. Yes people have two caddies, but we actually just keep our container of veg peelings in the fridge because we haven’t got round to getting another caddy. Works fine.

I will still compost peelings except potatoes because they can start to grow in the compost. I will put any bones in it but I don't eat much meat so it wont be very often.

I don't have a garden compost heap where I'm living now, but did in a previous house. My London borough has been doing the weekly food waste collections since 2010, I still used to put veg/fruit waste in the garden compost (just used to take it straight out there) and other food waste in the caddy.

I put mine in an old takeaway tub as I make them and go straight to the garden with them, if it's dark I wait till morning

We did the home composting and food waste caddy in our previous house. I tended not to have two caddies. I just added the veg peelings etc to the compost bin as I went.

We moved five years ago to an area where food waste wasn’t collected but it was introduced last year. At the moment all of our food waste goes to the caddy other than what we put down the waste disposal unit in the sink. (We are not on mains sewerage so it goes into our own treatment plant.)

I do want to start composting fruit and veg so will be looking at how is easiest to do that here. Our compost pile is much further away then previously.

We’ve had food waste collection for years; all compostable stuff still goes to my compost bin and just stuff I don’t want in there into the food waste. Very little goes into the food waste bin but it’s good for fat that you don’t want in the drains, bones, any cooked odds and ends.

I use our council food waste a lot as it comes with meat and bones etc. I use the same caddy. If I realize the bag just has veggie/fruit in it I chuck it in the home compost.

We have now got a chicken (hopefully a couple more to come) so there will be a few different spots for food waste to go.

Actually, yes, this is another potential problem that I hadn't thought about. Largely thanks to my extraordinary greed, we don't have much food waste. It wouldn't be much more than bones and the odd bit of onion that got scraped from a plate pre-dishwasher. And I don't much like the idea of a bit of near-empty plastic marinating residue from such a small amount.

I'm veering back towards just carrying on as before and using the council bins to aid my home composting

I worry about having rotting food! How do people who already have these bins manage?

My council will be providing two caddies - a little one for th kitchen, and a larger one for outside. So the rotting food will still be outside in a bin. Let's hope the bins are sufficiently pest-proof!!

The outside bin seems absurdly large, I can't imagine filling more than the first couple of inches!

Thank you everyone for lots of helpful posts so far. What might be sensible is to carry on as normal but also make use of the new system when we do have more-than-minimal non-veg/fruit waste.

I'm planning to carry on composting as usual via our countertop caddy but just take any bones etc straight out to the big caddy outside the kitchen door. I have a dalek compost bin and in winter it slows right down, usually stop for a few weeks in the coldest part of the year and gets too full so it will be good to have the council bin as backup. We haven't been told what sort of bags we have to use yet, if any, at work we have to use normal plastic liners which go in a food only wheely bin, no biodegradable ones allowed. Our council is behind though and we aren't starting for another few months.

We've had food waste collections here for many years and when we first got it I wasn't actively composting so used to have about three cadfies full of food waste as a young family of four (two fussy children).

Now I compost all fruit and veg and the family are older so fill about an eighth to a quarter of a bin a week - mostly cheese rind, mouldy bread and small amounts of meat or fish bone, plus things like pasta that's fallen in the sink drain or excess cooking oil. Because one caddy bag lasts us a week it does smell a bit. I keep it in the utility room so that's fine, but if it didn't have room there I would probably put a bag in the outside caddy and just go outside to dispose of any food waste that doesn't compost. I'm and out with buckets of peelings, cores, stalks and pods for the compost bin all the time anyway.

I was dreading it but I absolutely love having separate food waste. Under the old system one child only had to tip a tiny bit of unwanted dinner in the bin for it to contaminate and yuk out the whole kitchen bin. Now the gross stuff is separate and contained it's much better.

I had food waste collection years ago, in one of the pilot schemes.

You do not want to keep that caddy on your countertop! You would not believe how quickly it gets disgusting. I had a vivid memory of nearly retching the summer we'd had roast chicken and they didn't collect it for five days.

It needs to have a strong clip-top lid and it needs to live outside, next to your other bins, if it's going to have meat waste in it.

we don't use our council bin most weeks.
I meal plan and we eat leftovers for lunches. So not a huge amount of waste

We have chickens who eat any leftover cooked rice/pasta meat and eat bread.

The rest goes in the compost.
I do not put bread, pasta rice or meat of any kind in the compost though, so if we didn't have chickens it would be more.

So the only thing really that goes in the bin is bones, which are rare.
Also sometimes old cat food. But it has just occured to me that I could give that to the chickens.

We compost veg peelings. I hadn't heard about the food waste boxes thing, so I checked on the BBC website link to see if my council are ready for that or not. It says mine won't be ready to implement it until April 2034

No food waste here. I have compost bins and pets.
I've not used the food bin or the little caddy - I'll find an alternative use for them.
The general waste wheelie bin hardly has anything in it and the recycling one is about 3/4 full most collection days.

We've had food waste collection in my neck of the woods for years.

I still compost, and greatly enjoy my compost making! It's so satisfying when you've got a well composted bin and saves money in the garden.

I am waiting for a hot coposter to arrive that I ordered and I am really excited! They are vermin proof so you can put in all your food waste and no vermin, and should make the compost quick!

Love my compost haha.

I've got two caddies on the counter, but I only have a wormery so can't do onions, citrus, eggshells, meat etc. We don't eat much meat or fish though - and when we do, the bag goes straight in the outside food bin.

My councils delivers far more small liner bags than I use (equivalent of 2-3 a week) but yes, you do need to keep on top of hygiene a bit for fruit flies and smells. Wash them up every time you've emptied them. Empty 2-3 times a week in summer, once in winter, make a fruitfly trap (apple cider vinegar, drop of washing up liquid, jar with holes punched in lid).

The main problem I have is that the bin men plonk the outside bin on top of my front garden plants, and it's taken a lot of complaints to stop them doing it. Now they put it back where they found it, but turn it upside down with bin juice dripping down. Wankers.

We’ve had council food waste collection for years. I have a small caddy for the kitchen with degradable bags that I clean regularly. We then have a larger one for outside that holds about 3 or 4 full bags.
We have a tiny garden, so don’t bother with composting and are not ones for wasting food but our food waste bin does get filled. It’s mainly fruit & veg peelings (4 banana skins everyday from breakfast alone!) plus meat bones, tea bags etc.

If you have anything kept outdoors just make sure it’s in a tight sealed lid with some sort of clasp or lock & if you put the bin out the night before, either stick it off the ground somewhere or weigh it down with something very heavy, otherwise the foxes will have it all over the pavement.

We have food waste and a compost bin.

Food waste caddy needs to be lined with a foot waste bag (from super markets or some councils supply) otherwise it gets yucky. We have a kitchen one and a bigger one for the collections. Beware the compostable bags do leak after a few days so need changing at least once a week.
Food waste here also takes tissues.

Compost is all raw veg peelings, dead flowers etc, coffe grounds, I pop them in a plastic bowl and take out regularly (not always daily in winter). I dont compost cooked food.