Slop Buckets

[JMR27]

Apparently the Scottish Executive now want every household to have a slop bucket in the kitchen for the collection of waste food. Failure to comply will result in a fine of up to £200. Surely this cannot be enforced? What rights do they have to dictate what I have in my home?

[hc4361]

I have a hot compost. My little bit of food waste goes in that.

[ChuckFickens]

They have no rights to dictate what you have in your home.

They do have the right to dictate what you can expect to be taken away by the normal rubbish collection.

[mike11111]

This is just the start. Next they will want every household to have two pigs in the back garden to feed the slops to

[AlBags]

Idiots.

[gingejbee]

I think they're called "food caddy". we have one supplied by Council for food waste and they are an excellent idea.

[milly143]

They introduced these here a couple of years back, along with different wheelie bins for recycle and non recyle. The wheelie bins are micro chipped and as yet, you're not charged for putting something in the wrong bin but I stress the word 'yet'. I wasn't happy about it at first but actually, it's fine having a seperate bin for food waste. They don't get smelly as long as you empty them regularly and it makes you realise how much food goes to waste.

[Jonathan-Joe]

As someone said above, the local authority decides what refuse they collect and can state how it is to be presented for collection. If you don't like their methods you will have to find your own way of disposing of your rubbish. The system of food caddies in our area works well, as without smelly, rotting food, the main rubbish (we have sacks) is quite clean. We do have two caddies, one small for day to day use in the kitchen, which can be emptied into the larger, kept outside in garage or similar.

[woofgang]

I hope it never comes here. We have a huge rat problem (country area) they have chewed through the rubber strip on our new garage doors and I have had to stop composting and feeding the birds.

[slinkycat]

We have the caddies here too, though to be honest I don't use it as I compost all peelings, tea bags etc for use on the garden.
We don't have a fine (yet!) but we are encouraged to put any food waste, cooked or uncooked, into the green garden waste bin.

[horseshoes]

We have them in our area too, but we, like others compost most of our food waste. However, I won't put tomatoes or potato peelings on the compost - as last year I had hundreds and hundreds of little tomato seedlings all over the garden, and I'd also used the compost for filling tubs and baskets and got potato plants shooting up in them!

[Andyvon]

What are you supposed to do with the contents of this 'slop bucket' then? Many people live in flats and don't have gardens so how do they dispose of their food waste?

I live in Bucks and each address only has one wheelie bin for everything (although we managed to get another one from somewhere). Everything goes in the wheelie bin then into the back of the dustcart. Some of the neighbours don't even bother putting things into black bags, although we do. Some neighbours sort out paper, glass and plastic into separate crates which they collect every two weeks but most people in the road don't bother with those and everything goes straight in the wheelie bins. The scandal here last year was that 80% of what people do sort out is dumped in landfill anyway as our nearest recycling centre is a 90 mile round trip away and the council can't afford the fuel costs of the vehicles.

What are we expected to do with the food waste then? Put that in the wheelie bins with evverything else?

[Toureman]

Great idea !

We have had them for a while, the council Grinds up the food waste they take ,including bones and put all the waste in vats to break it down. after a while they take it out and dry it, it is then given back to us in sacks free to use as compost if we want it.

None of our waste is subject to fines or penalties or chips for not complying to their rules.

[Jonathan-Joe]

Rats and foxes shouldn't be a problem when using caddies. Ours have lids locked in placed by the handles, I've never had mine opened by an animal (but perhaps foxes don't fancy my food!)

[JMR27]

Thanks to all of you for your replies. We already have 3 wheelie bins with yet another to be delivered shortly. We recycle whatever we can but there's no way I'm having a slop bucket (food caddy is a much nicer term!) in my kitchen.

[Purple_Popple]

The slip buckets/kitchen caddies are unhygenic. Last September this recycling was introduced but our council forget to empty it, so you ring and complain, only to be told to leave it out in the street again the following week - by which time it is pungent and flies have laid their eggs all over it!!!! Disgusting. So I stopped this and everything goes into my one wheelie bin. Stupid idea.

[237SJ]

When my council came to deliver a foxproof food bin I told them to take it away again. They did.

[JMR27]

LOL at 237SJ, I like your style, I shall try that. I refuse to have a pile of festering gunge (albeit in a box) in my house.

[bushbaby_de]

You can get special contents insurance for shared houses, because a lot of standard policies won't cover you if your housemate leaves the front door wide open.

[bushbaby_de]

Sorry that was meant to go on a different thread. For some reason I subscribed to it then got brought back to this page, sorry!

[slinkycat]

Seems that councils have widely different ways of dealing with waste. Where I am we have three wheelie bins, one for recycling glass, plastic,paper and card, another is for kitchen and garden waste including cooked and raw food waste, the third is for anything that doesn't fall into those categories.
The kitchen caddy was provided as an extra optional, so that you can put your food waste into it before decanting it into the main "green" bin.
works really well for me apart from the recycling bin being embarassingly full of empty wine bottles!