Council Food Recycling Caddies

[barry1010]

My council is starting this very soon and I have no idea how it works.  They will collect weekly.

How big is the bin? Is it lined? What can I put in it and what mustn't go in it?

The only food waste I throw in the bin is chicken bones.

[bednobs]

in ours i use 25 litre compostible bags (which also tells you how big it is)

all food waste can go in there - leftovers, t bags, coffee grounds

[bednobs]

just had a quick look in mine- some bread crusts, half a piece of halloumi that wasnt eaten, some tomatoes that had gone mouldy and so on

 

[elliemay1]

You can put used tea bags, potato peelings, left over food etc in it. You line it with special bio- degradable bags which are provided free

[Buenchico]

There might well be some local variations but, as a guide, here's how it works in Oxfordshire:

[bednobs]

our bags arent free

[Maydup]

We have a small kitchen caddy with bags supplied by the council, and a larger caddy to put out with the filled bags.

We don't actually use any of them as we compost our veggies and fruit waste, alone with coffee grounds, tea bags etc. we dont seem to have any other food waste. 

[Smowball]

We've had food recycling caddies for years - they're bla k and about the size of a small pedal bin but wider and more square. We have a nice ceramic one in the kitchen in the shape of a tomato which holds 10litre bags, and when that's full we empty it and take the bag out to the one outside. Usually put about 3 bags from kitchen into the outside one a week. 

[barry1010]

Thanks all, for some reason I thought they took the full bin and replaced it with a nice clean one.  I didn't think of liners.

Seems a bit of a faff for a few chicken bones

[TheWinner]

I've seen, that ALL food waste can be put straight into the bin without being bagged. (although we wouldn't do that).

[barry1010]

My council is starting to charge for green waste collections, how long before they cut the weekly general bin collection? 

[bednobs]

weve paid for green waste for years.  and our bins are fortnightly, alternating with recycling

[barry1010]

We get weekly general, and alternating fortnightly recycling and green waste.

[Smowball]

We don't get provided with bags - we have to buy our own. 

[barry1010]

How do you dispose of liquid fat and grease?  So much easier to dispose of dripping and lard 

[Buenchico]

>>> "weve paid for green waste for years.  and our bins are fortnightly, alternating with recycling"

Ditto.  I've lived here for over 30 years and (although I don't use the service myself) the local council has always charged for collecting garden waste.

We've also just got two bins at the moment (one for recyclables and one for everything else), which are collected on alternate weeks.

[pastafreak]

We are incredibly backwards here. I was just looking at a leaflet that came through my door...the council is promoting recycling and waste disposal. 

There is no provision for recycling food waste here.

The information in the leaflet is based on the 2 bins houses get...not flats. I'm in a flat 😞

[Smowball]

We have one huge bin for glass/plastic recyclables, one huge bin for cardboard/paper, one huge bin for everything non recyclable such as crisp packets etc, and our  food waste caddy.

If we wanted a big garden waste bin too then we would have to pay for that. We just take any garden waste to our local tip.

As for oil/ grease etc - I just pour it into the food caddy in the kitchen which has a food bag liner in it.

[Cloverjo]

When my local council started food recycling I didn't use it. Everything went on the compost heap or out for the foxes. Last week I discovered rats in the garden, so used the food waste bin instead. 
The bin came back with a mouldy piece of grapefruit skin stuck to the newspaper lining. It made me feel sick, so I've gone back to the compost heap. 

[barry1010]

We have two big strong bags, too.  One for plastic /tins, the other for paper/cardboard, big black wheelie bin for general, smallish open plastic box for glass, green wheelie for garden.

I remember when we just had two large galvanised dustbins, collected weekly

[barry1010]

We compost everything, we have standard and hot compost bins.