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how do you dispose of semi-fluid food waste?

(114 Posts)
Fennel Mon 04-Apr-22 20:30:55

I. mean things like stew, mince, even some soups. Which contain some sold pieces of meat and veg.
I don't like to waste food but after reheating leftovers once or twice I don't trust it's safe to eat.
Personally I put it down the toilet - any other solutions?
I asked this question a few years ago and some Grans were horrified, I never worked out why. Except it could block the toilet.

M0nica Tue 05-Apr-22 11:56:22

I have never hadany problems with smells or rats and we live in a rural area. Yes, I have very occasionally seen a rat in the back garden ( 3 times in 25 years) but as the bins are at the front of the house, it is not that they are going for.

If I see a rat I put rat poison in the garden shed, which has gaps below the doors, too small for other animals and that deals with the problem.

Fennel Tue 05-Apr-22 11:55:47

Thanks fpr the replies. Our council doesn't supply food waste bins. I never put any grease or oil down the sink.Or wetwipes etc in the toilet.
My thinking on the subject is like yours GrannyLaine. ie what are toilets designed to deal with?
And I've never blocked the toilet with food waste.

PamelaJ1 Tue 05-Apr-22 10:14:44

My dad was a water engineer. He would have had a spasm to hear of people putting food products down the toilet.?
We don’t have a food waste system here so mine goes in the general waste bin. We don’t tend to have much because after 50 years together we are pretty good at portion size and I make soup. Sorry about the rats but we’re never far away from one. Our neighbour has chickens and they attract rats so feeding chickens is no way to avoid that hazard here!

MaizieD Tue 05-Apr-22 10:05:01

Casdon

Might it worsen the rat situation in the sewers if meat was available? Sorry, it doesn’t bear thinking about I know.

Putting it in the dustbin just transfers the 'rat problem' to the waste landfill sites....

Small amounts of waste food won't block the toilet, nor will it encourage rats to invade it. Don't people understand how the sewage system works?

As has been said before, we put large amounts of digested food waste down the toilet. I can't see much difference. And what about the bits which inevitably get flushed down the sink waste pipe? It all ends up in the same sewers.

maytime2 Tue 05-Apr-22 09:49:02

I sieve the food and put the solids into a green compostable bag which is provided free of charge by the Council.
Any fat that is left after frying bacon etc. I wait for the fat to congeal and pick it out with a fish slice and put it in kitchen towelling and bin it. I then boil water and detergent in the frying pan before washing up. The residue of that goes down the sink, but it is only liquid. I do not have a dish washer.

Chestnut Tue 05-Apr-22 09:30:17

Your toilet is not a waste disposal unit. They have made it very clear that only poo, pee and toilet paper should be flushed, that's it!

I put the semi-liquid mixture in a sieve over the sink, the liquid part drains away, the solid lumps go in a compostable bag in the food caddy with all the other food.

lixy Tue 05-Apr-22 09:26:03

No food recycling here sadly so freeze and then bin for us.
If there is enough for another meal then I'll freeze it for use in a week or so.

JaneJudge Tue 05-Apr-22 09:20:13

Iam64

I put it in the biodegradable bags our council provides for food waste. Into the green bin it goes

same here

25Avalon Tue 05-Apr-22 09:19:49

Instead of re-cooking too much, then ditching it by whatever means, adding to the huge quantities of wasted food, why not portion it in the first place and freeze it? You then just take out and use each portion as and when required. No waste. Important for the planet and your purse with inflation soaring.

merlotgran Tue 05-Apr-22 09:19:02

Why not cut down on the amount you cook in the first place?

Georgesgran Tue 05-Apr-22 09:09:13

Mine goes in the waste disposal. Northumbria Water remind us up here in the NE that ‘only pee and poo goes down the loo’

M0nica Tue 05-Apr-22 09:04:30

Into the food waste bin it goes. I put it in a compostable bag and if too liquid spoon the solid waste in and let the gravy go down the sink.

I would never put anything down the loo, other than what is expected to go down it.

I have a small pottery container on the draining board, to put food waste into during the week and decant it into a compostable bag at the end of the week. Except the occasional fish skin, put in it early in the week, I have never had a smell problem.

We have a number of magazines coming into the house that are now packed in compostable bags rather than the old clear plastic. I carefully cut one end off these and then use them for food waste. This means they are both re-used and composted - or like in most cases of food waste - anereobically digested.

LullyDully Tue 05-Apr-22 08:13:10

I think food down the loo encourages rats. I would drain off the fluid and put the solid bits in the bin, maybe wrapped up. They do say not to put anything down the toilet that isn't human waste.

BlueBelle Mon 04-Apr-22 22:24:32

Never ever put anything down the toilet except my own waste any left overs goes in a sealed biodegradable bag in the bin liquid apart from anything with fat in it down the sink

Oopsadaisy1 Mon 04-Apr-22 22:08:00

We have food compost caddies, supplied by the LA, compostable bags go in and they are collected from our larger food waste bin each week, these are different from our garden waste bin.
I strain off the liquid into the sink and solids go into the compost caddy.

SueDonim Mon 04-Apr-22 21:57:13

No wonder there are fatbergs in our drains! What a waste of hot water, too. I don’t throw away much prepared food but what there is goes into the food waste bin. If we have any left-over bread it’s used to line the base of the bin, which absorbs any liquids.

Casdon Mon 04-Apr-22 21:10:42

That’s very clear. We’ve got plastic boxes for paper and cardboard, for bottles and cans, and for metals and hard plastics, a food waste bin, a black wheelie bin for non recyclables, and a garden waste bin. It takes ages to sort it all out, and I don’t know how people with limited space manage because the three plastic boxes take up a lot of space, and don’t stack. Your pink sacks sound a lot easier.

MawtheMerrier Mon 04-Apr-22 21:05:58

I forgot to say the clear ( sometimes pink tinted) sacks are also for paper and cardboard if it is small enough to fit. Otherwise cardboard boxes etc have to be taken to the dump.

MawtheMerrier Mon 04-Apr-22 21:01:55

I don’t know if this is legible but it shows our clear plastic sacks for tin cans, rigid plastic etc, blue boxes for bottles, green wheelie bins as described before , black bin bags for general waste and smaller bags for batteries.

Casdon Mon 04-Apr-22 20:58:40

That sounds very fancy MawtheMerrier I’d be in favour of anything that cuts the time taken to recycle, we have 6 different bins at the moment.

GrannyLaine Mon 04-Apr-22 20:57:48

Ah Witzend you beat me to it!

GrannyLaine Mon 04-Apr-22 20:56:21

Well I'm a bit confounded.
When I consider the solid waste that toilets are designed to deal with, I can't think that a bit of mince is going to cause much of a problem..... but anyway, moving swiftly on.

We solved the problem of bad bin smells from small amounts of leftover (raw) cat food by keeping a bag-lined tub in the freezer to scrape her leftovers into. We then put the frozen waste into the dustbin on the day the bin men come.

Casdon Mon 04-Apr-22 20:54:41

Might it worsen the rat situation in the sewers if meat was available? Sorry, it doesn’t bear thinking about I know.

MawtheMerrier Mon 04-Apr-22 20:54:39

Casdon

My council would not allow us to do that MawtheMerrier, we can’t put food in the garden waste bin because it’s shredded and used as compost so no meat is allowed.
I put food in a sieve and run water on it to get the liquid out, then put it in the food waste bin. We aren’t allowed to put any food waste in the general waste bin either, it’s all very strict on recycling here.

Ours goes through an anaerobic digester (I think that is the term)
It’s a brilliant system and our council were one of the first authorities to introduce the system.

MaizieD Mon 04-Apr-22 20:54:22

P.S I wouldn't put any oil or fat down the toilet or the drain (as it all ends up in the same place) ; that's what causes fatbergs.