Food waste caddy - ugh!

Does anyone know why our council specifically state no veg peelings in the garden waste bins? Seems daft to me, I can put them in my food waste caddy but it makes it heavy my instincts tell me it should go in the garden waste.

My (raw) food caddy is actually a small pedal bin with a bucket liner. I keep my egg boxes and always put one in the bottom. This soaks up the liquid and goes straight in the compost with the food waste.
I must admit it can still get a bit smelly, but not too bad.

The worst thing here is uneaten cat food. My two 19 year-old cats are increasingly picky and leave food which yesterday was wolfed down
Would you consider putting this out in the evening for hedgehogs? They are carnivores and extra food now before they hibernate would be a really good thing.

I hate them and as we do not have much food waste it all goes down the waste disposal.

eazybee

The worst thing here is uneaten cat food. My two 19 year-old cats are increasingly picky and leave food which yesterday was wolfed down; I wrap it in paper but it still smells in the caddy, under the sink, to be put out separately for waste collection once a week. They have all sorts of varieties, but the food that is wasted is awful, and smelly.

Ditto to what someone said about keeping a dedicated container in the freezer, and transferring it only when the bin men are due.

I have only a relatively small, under-fridge freezer, but any scraps of meat or fish go in there, ditto the remains of a chicken carcass after I’ve boiled it up for stock.

I’ve never once had maggots in my outside food waste bin.
Apparently the flies that lay the eggs can smell any dead flesh from a mile away.

Living in a flat, so no compost place. Food waste put into those indoor caddies should only be vegetable matter. Maggots come form any meat or fish remains, including the bones), so those will still need to be wrapped in newspaper and thrown in black bins.
I was surprised that someone on here stated they never had anything to put into a food waste caddy. Wonder what they do with such things like banana skins, apple cores, potato peelingrs eggs shells, tea begs, etc..

My council in Wales has used food caddy bins for years, we have to separate all waste food, if not able to compost it, into small bags then into a big green lockable bin which is collected each week. If more small green bags are needed a trip to the local library or tying an empty bag on the outside bin and the refuge chaps ( they are all men) will leave a new lot. My only complaint is that the latest ones do disintegrate very quickly so I need to double wrap.

youtu.be/a01x9PXN5dI?si=G2i7aMhlU84E6hyg

It's worse now there are the food caddies as well.

I don't mind my compost caddy sitting on the draining board. I'm rather proud of it. I am vegetarian so there is only rotting veg waste which gets put on the compost bin.

My neighbours have 4 bins each of different colours. How anyone can produce so much waste!

A local musician wrote a song about 10 years ago based on our Council's guide to recycling. It is still relevant.

I have a small plastic container that once held 50 dishwasher tablets and it’s big enough to hold a day’s teabags, egg shells and veg peelings which get emptied each day into the compost.

Bones, trimmed fat etc. go into the waste bag in the fridge and out for collection Monday morning but it’s rarely full.

Never had food waste. If you mean peelings etc. they get composted or in with garden recycling for the council, wrapped in newspaper.

I am allergic to mould in all its lovely forms, so I don’t use a caddy and hopefully won’t have to.
I agree it’s a good idea though.

I persevered for a month or so with my food waste bin. The bags provided broke down so quickly that there was always a revolting liquid at the bottom of the bin in no time. Now, all food waste goes down my insinkerator. I refuse to have a smelly bin in the house.

I have to put the smaller food caddy in the cupboard under the sink , otherwise my greedy Labrador will get into it . We don’t have much waste as food peelings and teabags etc go on the compost heap and any food or liquids go down the waste disposal unit .
I empty the caddy about twice a week , unless it smells . And the bags go in the big kerbside caddy .
I don’t have a problem with the kitchen caddy but the larger kerbside one sometimes gets maggots in the summer 🤮.

LadyGracie

Our caddy bags are free, I always fold a couple of sheets of kitchen roll in the bottom of mine to soak up any liquid. Our caddy locks shut so doesn’t smell or attract flies.

I do this too. If that gets wet, or even just damp, it goes in the landfill rubbish. I also try to avoid putting into the caddy anything that is very sloppy, or any liquid, I pour off any gravy or similar down the sink. The official council bumff says you can even put milk into the food waste, but if I have any milk that is "off" it goes down the loo. A close-fitting lid to the food waste caddy is essential.

It’s good that Amazon are delivering a lot of things in strong, brown, recyclable paper bags now, but the boxes they deliver in are not so good, because as Iam says they are difficult to fit in the bin. The only way is to waste time sitting cutting them up so they don’t take so much room up in the bin.

Ours is good or as good as we can expect given we were given less than Knightsbridge and Kensington.
We have a grey bin for non recycling goods which is collected alternate weeks. A green bin for food waste and garden waste , a red bin for plastic and glass collected alternate weeks.
The cream bin for paper and cardboard used to be fortnightly but has been reduced to monthly. Much outrage as so many of us shop on line we have more not less cardboard. I bought a new radio yesterday, huge amounts of cardboard package. I left it overnight in the rain - it made it possible to squash into the bin - not dripping wet just damp enough for weak me to pull apartb

Iam64

That sounds grim MissA - imo useless with house mice and would have to move out if ratty ever moved in. As for creepy crawlers - can ‘they’ not take residents out for a day and spray the building with something toxic. I know, it’s wicked to think like this but…….

We have earwigs in the brickwork of the building, cemented in under the entrance door.
Evey year, out they all come, along with maggots and flies.

The council inform us they are under no obligation, as these are not "pests".

Our council is poor with recycling, but even so, it pats itself on the back and declares how good it is. There is absolutely no provision for waste food recycling at all. Nothing provided and apparently nothing expected. We are instructed to put food waste in the bin for none recyclables. We have two bins, one is for plastics, paper, tins, and card. Many plastics cannot be put in the bins; no yoghurt pots, no margarine pots, no tetra cartons. Then there is a small container for glass, which we must take ourselves to the glass recycling centre. Good luck with that if you can’t lift a heavy box of glasses, or you don’t have a car. There is a garden recycling facility if you pay a yearly amount for it; otherwise you can take it to the tip in your car.

That sounds grim MissA - imo useless with house mice and would have to move out if ratty ever moved in. As for creepy crawlers - can ‘they’ not take residents out for a day and spray the building with something toxic. I know, it’s wicked to think like this but…….

Until the council deal with the ongoing mice and creepy crawlies in the block, then I'm more likely to fly to the moon than add to the issue.

I don’t get much food waste but what I do gets flung in a bowl by the sink, then at the end of the day I toss it into a large margarine tub that lives in the freezer. No smells. When that is full it goes out for the bin men.

I found a very nice, cream enamel one in Lakeland for a dd.

Mine is just the brown plastic job supplied by the council. I probably empty it twice a week, and wash it out. But it’s never smelly or disgusting. That may be because any scraps of meat or fish go in a bag in the freezer until the night before the bin men come.

I clearly must have a very acute sense of smell!

It's not like I'm throwing fish heads or similar into mine. Just normal veg peelings, tea bags and the odd meat bone. But I can definitely smell it, and I am forever emptying it, disinfecting it and putting in a new bag.

We get nothing for free from our local authority. When I moved in here a few months back, two of the bins were missing. It cost me a little over £200 for 2 replacement bins and the fortnightly garden waste collection annual fee.

Our system here is the same as Jane43 has described.
I buy kitchen caddy biodegradable bags from Sainsbury’s or Waitrose and they work fine. The bags, once tied up are put in the larger food caddy which lives in the garage, and is emptied by the bin men weekly.

There is generally just vegetable and fruit waste in the kitchen one plus tea bags which I squeeze out before putting them in the caddy.

Even in very hot weather it never smells as I make a point of emptying it very frequently.

Also as Jane has said, the outdoor one is sealed shut when the handle is upright.

Our council provided both some years ago, free of charge and there is no charge for emptying it.

I must admit though, I initially hated the thought and vowed that I would never use it !