Recycling your food waste is the best way to make sure that it doesn’t end up causing the environment any harm. We’re so focussed on recycling as much paper, plastic and metal as we can, often food is forgotten. The truth is, as a waste product, food is one of the most harmful items.
You see, when it’s breaking down, food waste releases methane into the atmosphere. It’s 25 times more potent that carbon dioxide and therefore incredibly harmful to our environment. By capturing food waste and putting it through an anaerobic digestion facility, we can use those gases and waste products to provide power to homes and fertilisers to farmland.
Waste isn’t always the worst thing in the world, but rethinking how we deal with it and using it to an advantage – that’s a neat trick for sustainable living. So let’s dive into your food waste recycling guide.
Where you can get a food waste bin or caddy
If you don’t have a food waste bin or caddy you can grab one from your district council. Remember your caddy can be lined and put in your kitchen for easy disposal, and then your bin should remain outside and be put out with your kerbside waste collection schedule.
Food waste is collected weekly so be sure to make the most of it so you have more room in your other collections which may not be quite so regular!
You can grab food waste caddy liners from your local supermarket quite easily. We recommend a sprinkling of baking soda in the bottom of your caddy before your liner – this can help reduce any unwanted smells – although with regular emptying, you may not need this.
What can go in your food waste caddy
Just like every recycling process, there are items that are safe to dispose of, and items that aren’t. So let’s first take a look at what should go in your food waste bin.
All cooked and uncooked food waste can go in your kitchen caddy, not just fruit and vegetable peelings, but egg shells, bones, tea bags, coffee grounds and anything past its use-by-date.
Please be careful not to include any packaging (except liners for your caddy) such ready meal trays, or liquids including milk and cooking oil.
Take a look at the full list below of what can be collected:
– All uneaten food and plate scrapings
– Ready meals (without packaging)
– Mouldy foods or foods that have passed their use-by dates
– Meat and fish including bones, skins and gristle (raw and cooked)
– Bread, pastries, cakes and scones
– Tea bags and coffee grounds
– Raw and cooked vegetables
– Fruit – whole or cut
– Peelings, stones, pips and cores
– Salad
– Rice, pasta and beans
– Dairy products including egg shells
– Pet food
As you can imagine, there are also items which can’t go in your food waste bin. If these end up in there, you run the risk of the entire bin being thrown out from disposal and causing further issue which require time and money to fix. Be sure not to allow these items to end up in your food waste caddy:
– Packaging of any kind except plastic bags
– Cling film
– Cardboard or paper
– Liquids like oils, fats, and milk
– Pet bedding
– Any other material that is not food waste
You’ve got the information on where to get a bin, what to put in it, what to avoid. Now there’s no reason you can’t join the other thousands of residents recycling their food waste.
