How can I keep my wheelie bin maggot free?

[ohdearwhatamess]

This problem plagued me last summer, and has started again.

Fortnightly collections. We are avid recyclers and composters, so what goes in the bin is nappies (double bagged), plastic packaging, and meat leftovers. All in black bin bags, not thrown straight into the bin.

I clean the bin out straight after it has been emptied with bleach and water, and throw in some Jeyes yellow granules that are supposed to keep it fresh and lovely.

And yet still the maggots come by about day 10.

The council tell me that it is impossible for maggots to get inside the bin if the lid is shut, which is nonsense on my experience.

We don't bin our excess fat either (other than salty bacon rinds) - that goes on the bird table. As DH has an aversion to chicken, we don't have much food waste that can't go to dog, birds or compost worms.

Maybe rather than an alternative full-size bin in the shade you could get a smaller sealed container there just for the food waste - accumulate waste plastic etc as usual in the wheely and then transfer just the foodstuffs on bin day?

LOL at fat on bird table idea. Dog would have that within 5 minutes.

Meat in brown bin attracts flies/maggots within 3 days, iirc from last year. Black bin, where stuff is bagged, doesn't get them until about day 9/10.

What we do is to bag up the meat/really smelly waste in a carrier bag and on the next walk we do drop it into a normal bin e.g bus stop etc.
Our bin is 2 weekly collection too, and to date there's been no maggot action.
Plus you can kid yourself the carrier bag is from a lovely picnic you've just had, and is therefore not full of rancid meat and some ripe nappies!

Do you double bag your meat/bones leftovers?
I only put out our black bin about once every 4-6 weeks (we are slow to fill it) and we don't have maggots, either, or even much of a pong. I've never, not once in 5 years, cleaned the black bin, either.
But I double bag most everything (using waste bags, btw, like cornflake bags, I have never bought any sort of plastic bag to put waste in). And I tie the bags up tight.
I'm 99% sure I even put maggoty bird carcass into our bin a while back, and still didn't notice flies or maggots afterwards.

How can you know that you've got maggots unless the bags are ripped or sitting open for you to peer into when you open the lid?

lljkk - it starts with an isolated few around the rim of the bin, and within a couple of hours the bin is absolutely dripping with the things, crawling all over the insides and the outside. Tis horrible.

The rubbish in black bags is double bagged.

I don't think they're necessarily getting at the meat waste (or inside the bags, although I scan't rule it out), but it is the fact that the smell of meat and poo attracts them to the bin.

The Binifresh is "not available" on Lakeland site Also throwing away pressurised cans every 3 months is probably not that Eco?

Going to try everyone's suggestions though ... can't face a whole summer of maggot filled Green bins ...

I just got medieval on ours with lashings of boiling water, some liquid disinfectant and a long handled broom.
All the black gunk has now gone, and I presume, the binflies too.
Shame I trod in catshit whilst tipping out the rank water, so now have to clean my trainers...
Bin's clean though!

rofl beardy

I pressure wash mine with a load of disinfectant once a fortnight (every each collection). It still gets maggotty though [barf]

Sorry- I'm not a mum, but do have this problem

I'm fighting with the same problem. I clean bin with bleach after collection but still get the problem- I am convinced the biggest problem comes from discarded cat food- you can see the fly eggs on the left over food (small white spots, often in clusters)- they seem to make a flyline to catfood over other things.
Double carrier bags haven't helped, or fly spray. Remember that carrier bags have those air holes in now to stop children suffocating so maggots can climb out when hatched- (I'm not sure if the occaissional sacrifice isn't too high a price to pay tover all of the maggots though )

My bin is in the sun so gets very hot which compounds the problem- same rubbish went in at the last house and the problem was nowhere near as bad where the bin was not in the sun. Unfortunately there is no where else to keep it.

I move the bin on collection day, open the lid and by the time the binmen come they aren't crawling all round the lid- the maggots don't seem to like it- at least it doesn't look so bad.

Anyhow since there seems to be no real easy fix or solution I'll try:

• Jeyes fluid. Used for cleaning outside drains- it was the stuff used to disinfect the bird flu virus H5N1.
• keeping it separate from the other rubbish and seal it in bags with no air holes.

I don't think they will sort the problem, but may help reduce the issue. If/when that doesn't work I'll map out the local council bins (and dog poop ones- is it a fineable offence putting things other than poop in them?), put the cat food in them and see if the maggot infestation goes. I bet there's a big reduction.

I don't often feel sorry for council workers but I do for the guys emptying bins crawling with maggots. Horrible for us but what about them?

Anyhow, thanks to all the posters, shame there wasn't a reliable easy solution.

booyhoo The stuff you are referring to is citronella, we have already tried this but it seems to have little or no effect, our wheelie bin suffers from this even using it, tying our bin bags securely and using one of the fly zappers, similar to the ones used in commercial properties and still we get maggots.

Flies will eat and lay eggs on any rotting green waste. I've put rhubarb leaves in the bin and few days later it's covered. All I do is stick the bin in the middle of the garden and open the lid. I sit with a cuppa and watch the birds get a nutritious meal.

Stick the bin in your garden and every morning open the lid. Free bird food

Since the one occasion I had maggots, I;ve always used two bags to enclose the kitchen-bin waste. My theory is that if the bin smells, the flies will find a way in, but if double-wrapped the rubbish should be airtight and therefore not attractive to flies.
Bins normally emptied fortnightly, but mine got forgotten last time, so hoping I'm still maggot-free at next emptying and have added some anti-smell powder.

Update from above post: Still no maggots even after a month (of mainly hot weather), so will continue using anti-binsmell powder- Neutradol - when hot.

Your best bet would be invest in some insect repellent, this will keep away the maggots for good!

See if you have space under your sink for a waste disposal unit. It's a bloody god send. We have never had maggots in our bin as no food waste (except avocado stones) go in there.