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

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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?

We have the same! My plastics and metal bag is falling to bits at the velcro. Soft plastic collection has made a big difference to amount of general rubbish, been an eye opener. It all works well if people put the plastics in with glass then cardboard box on top and food caddy bin in that one. When they don’t the foxes get the soft plastics and it ends up everywhere.

We didn’t have a compost bin when first moved in so everything went into food waste. Don’t use the council work top caddy but have an enamel one with liner and empty that out several times a week.

Have bought another plastic caddy that am planning to put veg in to go on compost but that hasn’t happened yet and compost heap is pretty full so will wait till new heap sorted . I think I’ll put veg caddy in fridge as often can’t easily get to compost or will let the cat out after her curfew.

Our council have collected food waste for as long as I have lived here and are great at recycling. It makes such a difference as we no longer have a really manky kitchen bin with bits of food mixed in there amongst general rubbish. The food caddy gets emptied to the outside food waste bin really regularly as we cook a lot and eat plenty of fruit and veg so all the peelings. I used to get the massive ick putting the bins out but separating the food aspect has been a massive improvement.

Just be mindful of foxes. We hide the outside food caddy inside one of the other bins until collection day when it goes on top. The foxes get in anything and there is nothing worse than having to clear up a raided food bin. Actually there is . . . . if a fox has carried someone else's food waste bag into your garden. Grim!!!!

Same. All that goes into the council bin is stuff that takes a long time to decompose. Because of that it tends not to get stinky in the time between collections.

We don't have a compost heap (we tried once and it became absolutely infested with fruit flies!), so we do fill it quite easily! If you don't compost but cook from scratch and so have lots of peelings etc it's really not that ridiculous.

I'm amazed by the people who think it's more gross to have a little food waste caddy that you empty regularly than to put that in the kitchen bin. We only empty our kitchen bin once a fortnight so it would be absolutely revolting if it had food in it!

Fruit flies are part of the composting process. They generally feast on the fresh stuff. The way to tackle them is just to put dry stuff like ripped card or shredded paper on top when you put fesh stuff in. Or just let them at it. They are harmless.

I'm learning loads from this thread. Not just about how to respond to the new council collections, but also about composting generally. For example, i didn't know that citrus peel was to be avoided in compost heaps. We put quite a lot in.

The thread has also made me think about some things that I currently don't compost, but that could go in the council bin. One is coffee grinds. I've kept them out because I read that they have a lot of acidity. The other is tea bags. Lots of you seem to put these in your council bins. Is that fully ok, regardless of what type of material the bag is made from? I know they wouldn't work on my own heap, but perhaps there is shredding tech for 'council compost'??

I also want to show a bit of love for the word 'caddy'. In my whole life I haven't read this word so many times as it has appeared on this thread. Growing up, it was always the word for the slightly decorative container that tea leaves lived in. It's got a real big-boy job now.

We have always had food waste collections living in this house but we have an allotment, multiple compost bins and a hot composter too.

I just share it about really! Am grateful for the council collection as it is collected weekly. My hot composter requires a good mix of layers to work well so I try not to overload the food waste element. Its currently operating below temperature so has a lot of worms living in it. It is so well insulated that there are no smells though.

There's 5 of us plus pets living here so we have a lot of feelings, rind and scraping. We don't waste a lot of good food but we cook from scratch so have a lot of peelings and ends etc.

We've had food bins for years. I didn't realise so many people didn't. I compost vegetables and some fruit like apples. I bin meat and fish waste, cat food, bones, citrus, and random bits that won't successfully compost like potatoes.

I keep a garden bucket by the back door for the compost, and have a kitchen caddy. The outdoor food bin, is outside. I only have one bag a week.

Yes. Ours collects food waste allegedly anyway. We don’t need it - we have compost bins x 3 for the garden which save us money on compost. Plus a food disposal sink. So there’s very little waste left to stink up bins or attract foxes

I compost for the purpose of making compost to use, so I won't be throwing away compostable peelings etc. by putting them in a food waste bin. I'm sure I'll soon get used to putting skins, bones and the occasional bit of mouldy bread into a separate bin rather than the ordinary kitchen bin.

It’s completely fine. We’ve done it for years.

Thanks for the tip - we could try to add dry stuff, if we were going to do this again (I'm pretty reluctant, to be honest). But they made the area of the garden where the compost bin was unusable, and it's a small garden, so letting them have at it all summer doesn't seem viable to us!

Why didn’t you put the chicken outside in the outside food waste bin?

I didn't know that citrus peel was to be avoided in compost heaps. We put quite a lot in.
So do I. I don't know where the "don't put citrus in" came from. I think that 100% citrus might kill off the worms but a bit every day seems fine.
coffee grinds. I've kept them out because I read that they have a lot of acidity
Again, if it's part of a mix then I don't see a problem. Do you know that coffee shops often give away their grounds for free?
tea bags. Lots of you seem to put these in your council bins. Is that fully ok, regardless of what type of material the bag is made from?
Tea bags used to be a problem because they plasticised the paper, so it never rotted down, but they have upped their game. I've just checked my teabags (Yorkshire) and it proudly boasts that they are "plant-based compostable tea bags". However that is industrial-grade composting, not home-grown (but I still put them in! You can always sieve out anything that doesn't rot down) so they can go in the food-waste bin.

Our council is rubbish at recycling. We had been told they don't have a date for food waste yet. We have a normal wheely bin and a recycling one which takes paper, card, tins, aerosols and plastic bottles, plus a separate glass bin. No plastics taken except bottles, so no punnets, yogurt pots etc, no tetrapaks. I take soft plastics to the supermarket. We have a compost caddy on the counter which we will continue to use but haven't got space for another caddy or bin so meat/fish scraps etc will have to go straight out to the big one when it arrives. If it ever arrives.

We have had food waste collection by my council for years, maybe 10 years.

I have a small caddy in the cupboard under the sink in the kitchen where general food waste goes.

I keep the larger kerbside caddy (the one they empty into the lorry) outside my back door and put my fruit and veg waste and dead flowers in there, and walk that down to the compost heap once a week.

Then the liner from the kitchen caddy gets tied up, into the kerbside caddy and out to the front path for collection the night before bin day.

TLDNR: you don't need two separate caddies in your kitchen, you can have the fruit/veg waste outside.

Makes more sense for us to keep our fruit / veg one indoors as that is used several times a day whereas meat / fish might be once a week.

We’ve had food waste collection here for years. A decade.
We compost most stuff - we do put a thick layer of newspaper in the bin. Wrap all compost up in newspaper and we have thick brown bags. Some tea bags are ok for home composting and some for council and some are not - depends on the amount of plastic in them. Cut flowers can go in our the green bin (garden).
Kitchen towel can go in ours too which is great. It’s great.

I will keep on composting, currently have two big heaps. I do a lot of gardening so it does pay to compost saved me a lot of money on compost etc.
I used to have two garden bins for garden waste at roughly £42 a year for collecting every two weeks, I’ve cut down to one. And compost more. Realising I’m paying for them to compost stuff and I’m effectively buying it back at the garden centre. At least that’s how I feel.

I was responding to the OP, who was suggesting two caddies on her countertop.

It's not a good idea!

I've just started as it only began last week. My first collection will be this Friday but I doubt I will put it out just yet.

I will do it, I don't get much food waste normally so I don't expect to put my bin out for collection more than once a fortnight or three weeks. The bin fastens so I'm not too worried about rats or foxes getting into it and currently the bin is in the back garden outside the utility room so I'm not expecting it to be attacked by wildlife once I put my bagged food waste into it.

There is a lot of whinging and moaning on FB locally where people are saying they won't do it, it's a waste of time, spend the money on something else etc. but if you don't want to do it, then don't do it, it's optional at the moment, no one is going to force you. A few people have their own compost heaps so they won't have anything to go into the bins but not everyone is able to do that.

We don’t eat meat very often and have hardly any food waste. Leftovers get eaten up or turned into something else and then eaten. All veg waste goes in our compost bin and we use the compost that’s created in our garden.

Tea bags - I too use Yorkshire tea and have never found the bags in the wormery trays, so they must get eaten. I do tear them open, I like to think that easier access speeds up the process but that is a highly unscientific opinion.

I don't compost the plastic gauze tea bags (which I avoid buying but sometimes get given). I tear them open, compost the contents, the bag goes into the normal bin.

As I only have a wormery I thought it was best to avoid citrus and onions? Maybe that's only while it gets established? but it's my routine now.

Perhaps I have too much time on my hands to think about compost this much 😅

As a general comment, I think that it pays to remember that recycling is still a fairly new concept and is always evolving.
If you are still operating on what was true last week / month / year then you have to consider that you might now be out of date. I know that I've been caught out a couple of times!

It can rot in your main bin instead 🤷‍♀️. Not sure why that’s particularly different