[Closed] Food waste collection service

Yes all goes in brown wheelie bin for composting collected fortnightly

A wheelie bin? 😯

Yes, it gets collected weekly with recycling but main bin only gets picked up fortnightly. Judging from what's on the footpath for collection day, there's been a poor take-up on our road. I suppose it is a bit of a hassle buying the bags and using the kitchen caddy - and well, unless folk [i]have[/i] to do something, and it's easier not to, then many won't. It's lovely once it warms up in the summer with the road filled with the aromas of rotting food inside nice hot black plastic bins. Lazy arses. 🙂

Oops, misread.

Yes, it strikes me as a faff which is why I've never bothered.

Compost bin in the garden for me, you can also get a food digester for cooked food/meat and all the other organic stuff you can't compost..

Soon most local councils will be operating Anaerobic Digesters which will rot the food down, syphon off the methane, run an engine or two off the gas use the heat to pasteurise the food sludge, export the real AC power to the grid, then the remnants can be collected and spread over a farmers field to fertilise for further crops.

Ive worked on a dozen or so of these sites now and all are running well, there even a couple that can export the methane straight into the gas grid !

I would be up for food waste recycling, but I don't think it's available in my part of town yet.
But...
Would it be economical/ less messy if the council provided bags made of biodegradeable corn starch?

Wouldn't milk floats be a better vehicle for transporting the waste for composting?

That's my two cents.

Yeah we have a bin to put out. They collect every week and I pity the poor sod who has to do it in summer.
All the veg peelings I put in the garden waste wheelie bin.

You have waste food? Why?
Never happens in our house. Ever. We just don't buy or cook more then we can eat.

PeterPoddy has it
Buy it , cook it , eat it dont have eyes bigger than your belly

I'm not a fan of chicken bones or fat off of other meat ....also veg peelings egg shells etc ....they all go in

Ours is just dropped into our composting bin, I admit Stratford upon Avon council have tried to make recycling as sensible in a real life situation as possible!

You have waste food? Why?

Self righteous much?!

Cauliflower leaves
Rhubarb leaves
Beetroot leaves
(let's just say lots of leaves & general vegetable spares!)
Eggshells
Meat bones & excess fat
Fish innards
Shock horror - something goes off?
The shitty bit of Camembert

etc

You have waste food? Why?
Never happens in our house. Ever. We just don't buy or cook more then we can eat.

Not everybody has room for a compost bin.

Local trial has uncovered the extra costs in staff, machinery etc according to local paper at the weekend. No one is surprised due to other mega costly council gaffs ie £17mil pool complex closed after 5yrs due to numerous faults that "everyone" but the council knew about ❗ Now requiring upwards of £10mil to "carry out remedial works"

The council have bought and stored the vehicles required to implement the collection service, spend the money or lose it grant type scheme. At the Same time as budget cuts mean they cannot operate the normal system causing delays in collection in some areas(my Bro is an operative). They have just started building the processing facility. The roadway that was altered to accommodate vehicles turning into the facility is already showing signs of breaking up....... Yet another calamity about to hit our Labour run council being stifled of cash by SNP dictators......

Soon most local councils will be operating Anaerobic Digesters which will rot the food down, syphon off the methane, run an engine or two off the gas use the heat to pasteurise the food sludge, export the real AC power to the grid, then the remnants can be collected and spread over a farmers field to fertilise for further crops.

Ive worked on a dozen or so of these sites now and all are running well, there even a couple that can export the methane straight into the gas grid !

cheekyboy - thanks, that's certainly interesting. How far are the recycling trucks having to travel to an ingester? Will there be more ingesters, how easy or not is it for planning permission?

You have waste food? Why?
Never happens in our house. Ever. We just don't buy or cook more then we can eat.

I'm finding that supermarket veg doesn't stay fresh for long, that's my wastage! Going back to the farm shop as their veg lasted much longer. Yes, I know, I could always shop more than once a week. 🙂

You have waste food? Why?

No, I (and plenty of others by the sound of it) have compostable waste that goes into a bin that gets picked up by the council once a week. Perhaps when tumescent with a bout of self-righteousness, wait for it to go flaccid before posting.

cheekyboy - thanks, that's certainly interesting. How far are the recycling trucks having to travel to an ingester? Will there be more ingesters, how easy or not is it for planning permission?

@CG this is dependent upon location, I suspect that the spread of sites across UK is not particularly efficient in terms of the carbon footpint of the vehicles as yet, however as the system does work and operators are seeing a return they will expand.
A colleague who works in Italy is now saying they are getting to saturation point in Europe.

[quote=cinnamon_girl ]A wheelie bin?

Yes a wheelie bin food waste in bio bags FOC from council all goes in with garden waste in wheelie bin, grass cuttings etc

Yup. We have a kitchen caddy and a larger bin which the caddy waste goes into for collection.

I put veggie offcuts, egg shells, coffee grounds etc in mine. Impressed to see that some people above eat all of these, personally the egg shells are too crunchy for me. Perhaps someone has a recipe ?

Cauliflower leaves
Rhubarb leaves
Beetroot leaves
(let's just say lots of leaves & general vegetable spares!)
Eggshells
Meat bones & excess fat
Fish innards
Shock horror - something goes off?
The shitty bit of Camembert

Bloody fussy eaters.

Says the man that only drinks virgin's blood 🙂

We have the wheelie bin system plus a small caddy for the kitchen, the only thing I would like to see added would be brown food waste (pizza boxes and such) but given people have such a hard time understanding the present arrangements (paper products, glass, steel, aluminium and everything plastic but polystyrene) I can't see that happening. Oh, and dog shit (or any animal shit), ton of methane in there for the taking.

I'm guessing our council is a bit smarter than Treksters though as we would appear to share services (we go through the same changes at the same time so it would certainly appear that way) which would no doubt drive up efficiencies.

Says the man that only drinks virgin's blood

It's an ancient tradition, I only gather enough that I can use in one day.

Stirling collect food waste and compost it.
It is all done alongside the normal multi channel recycling.
We use it lots.

We have a kitchen caddy and a larger bin which the caddy waste goes into for collection.

Same here, collected weekly with the other re-cycling (plastic, cans, card, paper, glass etc), the main wheely bin is emptied fortnightly with the garden waste wheely bin emptied on the alternate week (but we have to pay extra for the garden waste bin).

Somerset Waste Partnership are currently supplying us with free biodegradable kitchen caddy liner bags as part of a trial too.

Food waste - or coffee grounds and peelings as I'd call it - get collected - can go in bug brown wheelie bin every fortnight along with garden waste (which is what happens over the winter months when garden compost is not really functioning very well.

Spring / summer / autumn - above food waste goes in compost bins (in garden) to rot down, along with some grass cuttings, rough cardboard and shredded paper. Alternate putting the food in that along with a couple of green cones which just sook it all up and leach the nutrients into the surrounding rhubarb patch - work amazing well.

Dog shit?

Hadn't thought of that - with two dogs we'll soon fill it up 🙂

[quote=b r ]Dog shit?
Hadn't thought of that - with two dogs we'll soon fill it up

Not one of the allowed items in brown bin

Animal shit goes down the loo in our house.

You've trained them well.

I can stand many things.
I am a patient man.
I am forgiving, and look for the best in others.

But this....

The shitty bit of Camembert

This cannot stand. There will be repercussions for this.

Yup, I can't really understand why dog muck can't go in the bin but meat can. The pathogens all get broken down in the same process, if the water board were smart they would be harvesting all our methane as well.

Cooked food waste and non-compostable food waste (bones, fish bits etc)goes in a bio degradeable bag in a kitchen caddy. We then put this in a bigger bin which is collected weekly. All supplied by the council.

They both have smell free lids which work great.

It gets ingested or similar to generate power or something, I haven't read the blurb recently, then the ash gets used as fertiliser.

They are pretty good at this in Wales, and uptake seems pretty high by the bins on the roadside every Friday.

We compost the veg peelings, eggshells etc.

if the water board were smart they would be harvesting all our methane as well.

They are and have been doing for a long time.

If you are putting the waste in special plastic bags in the garden waste bin its going for composting

Food waste Ad is fraught with issues as getting separation of plastics often fails

Here in Leeds they have it pretty well sorted.
We have a small kitchen caddy, free issued compostable liners for this caddy and a mini-wheelybin that gets collected each week.
It's a great system and as we cook a lot and have a dog then the food trimmings/waste bin is well used.
Leeds also have a brown bin for garden waste (plus some allotment waste in our case!).

Anyone saying they don't produce food waste is only trying to be smart. Drink coffee? Peel potatos? Cut the stalks off sprouts, cabbage etc? Crack eggs? Trim the fat or skin off chicken/meat?

I compost everything at home, 2 bins. Have been for 6 years. The only rank smell from our resisual bin now is nappies!

So many councils operate different ways of doing it. Edinburgh sends its to Cumbernauld, which is about 40 miles. No need for biobags - any bag will do.

They were going to have private sector partners build facilities at the SE of the city to reprocess everything, but after spending £millions of Council and Contractor money the SNP changed their mind and the project stopped.

Kitchen caddy, then compost bin in the garden. It produces some luverley compost 8)

You have waste food? Why?
Never happens in our house. Ever. We just don't buy or cook more then we can eat.

Never? Like Never ever?

I, like cheekyboy also work in the Anaerobic Digestion industry.
As an interesting fact 4% of energy fed onto the grid is from this avenue, the same as wind farms, but less heavily subsidised.
The rise in this industry is in part from the landfill tax on food, approximately £150? per tonne.
To send it to a recycling facility it is around £50 per tonne, so more companies and councils are encouraged on board.
Some facilities such as the Viridor plant at Bridgwater only accepts its own council collections, processing around 50,000 tonnes of brown bin food waste a year, exporting around 2 Megawatts of energy per hour from the methane produced back onto the grid. The plastics and metals are separated and then go on for further re-processing instead of landfill.

@CG this is dependent upon location, I suspect that the spread of sites across UK is not particularly efficient in terms of the carbon footpint of the vehicles as yet, however as the system does work and operators are seeing a return they will expand.
A colleague who works in Italy is now saying they are getting to saturation point in Europe.

Thank you again cheekyboy. 🙂

I, like cheekyboy also work in the Anaerobic Digestion industry.
As an interesting fact 4% of energy fed onto the grid is from this avenue, the same as wind farms, but less heavily subsidised.
The rise in this industry is in part from the landfill tax on food, approximately £150? per tonne.
To send it to a recycling facility it is around £50 per tonne, so more companies and councils are encouraged on board.
Some facilities such as the Viridor plant at Bridgwater only accepts its own council collections, processing around 50,000 tonnes of brown bin food waste a year, exporting around 2 Megawatts of energy per hour from the methane produced back onto the grid. The plastics and metals are separated and then go on for further re-processing instead of landfill.

Thanks crofts, it's good to hear from those in the know. 🙂

Yes, I need to stop being a lazy cah. 😳

You have waste food? Why?
Never happens in our house. Ever. We just don't buy or cook more then we can eat.

Never? Like Never ever?

Plus, the Poddys don't have children...

I saw a load of brown topped bins out fairly locally, but we don't have the collection service round my way.

I had some leftover sauce from a slowcooker meal. I put it in a GLASS JAR and put the jar in the normal bin. I'm going to hell.

Cooked food and animal leftovers in recycling bin.. Raw plant and stuff in the compost.
Pretty much fill the food recycling bin every week.

My philosophy is why throw something away to rot in landfill when a little bit of effort it can be recycled. Everythingtthat doesn't go in landfill also saves the council money (hopefully)
Council house Tennants should be required to recycle as part of their tennancy agreement IMO

Don't think our water board harvests, certainly judging by the Abbotsinch sewage farm.

As I said, missing a trick.

squirrelking - Member
Don't think our water board harvests, certainly judging by the Abbotsinch sewage farm.

As I said, missing a trick.

Usually primary sludge is collected from remote treatment sites/towns such as yours and then tankered to larger sites and processed through digestion to produce the methane. Economies of scale.
Organic food waste gives off more methane than "human" waste btw, hence the drive for food recycling.

Cauliflower leaves

Nooooo cauliflower leaves are lovely in cauliflower cheese. We used to give them to the dog but now she has to share.

, if the water board were smart they would be harvesting all our methane as well.

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/2-route-Poo-powered-bus-ready-service/story-26183969-detail/story.html

I have to admit we throw out very little food. Most veg trimmings go in the dogs bowl (except garlic and onion). We have a composte bin for other fruit and veg peelings and stones and coffee grinds (bean to cup makes that a lot easier). I do admit the odd time we have a chicken (maybe once a month) or whole fish (maybe twice a month) we put it in the bin. Simply because for us the brown food bin is was used so little it just used to sit there and ended up being perfect for pet food 😀

Most of our packaging is black plastic and plastic wrappers that annoyingly our council won't take but typically we half fill a wheelie bin between 3 adults every fortnight. If we could recycle the plastics we have to throw out we could reduce that to about 1 carrier bag a fortnight with the exception of something out of the ordinary like getting an electrical item with lots of polystyrene which the council won't take.

Yes, it strikes me as a faff which is why I've never bothered.

Waste food is put in a caddy, and is taken out for collection once per week. It's exactly the same effort as using a normal bin.

The faff is having to sterilise the stinky food bin after chicken and fish has been in there for a week in warm weather.

I did see a suggestion of keeping a box in the freezer to freeze food waste and then dump the frozen block in the food bin when you put it out.

The faff is having to sterilise the stinky food bin after chicken and fish has been in there for a week in warm weather.

We use the compostable liners, and take the waste out to the outside bin if it starts to smell. So we don't need to clean the bin.

No, because landfills also need food waste to produce electricity, no one ever mentions landfills producing electricity do they, they only knock out around 5 Terawatt Hours mind you

Ours rip along the rim without fail 🙁

Didn't know the sludge was removed elsewhere, interesting, certainly does make sense.

No, because landfills also need food waste to produce electricity, no one ever mentions landfills producing electricity do they, they only knock out around 5 Terawatt Hours mind you

Landfills perform very poorly in capturing methane when compared to anaerobic digestion.

bland - Member
No, because landfills also need food waste to produce electricity, no one ever mentions landfills producing electricity do they, they only knock out around 5 Terawatt Hours mind you

Anaerobic Digestion is a more controlled and efficient use of the food waste though, as it will yield an end product that can be used as fertiliser or fuel and isn't slowly taking over the landscape.
Recycling of other recoverable materials (wood/metal/plastics) is also reducing landfill, it is something we will have to get our heads around more as time goes on.

<Gets off soapbox and goes back to work.......>

We put all the food waste in the little inside food waste bin.
This then goes into the bigger food waste bin outside.

This is collected every couple of weeks along with the brown bin for garden waste, or is it the black bin, for anything that can't be recycled? Not forgetting the variations in collections for the paper sack, the cardboard sack, the plastics sack and the green box for metal/glass/ textiles.

No, because landfills also need food waste to produce electricity, no one ever mentions landfills producing electricity do they, they only knock out around 5 Terawatt Hours mind you

Poor old landfill eh ! not to worry though, there is a very resillient group of boffins looking at an efficient way of gasifying landfill waste to power engine/turbine driven generators, its still away off yet in terms off getting the efficiency balance of the gas production however if they succeed it could be a game changer.

Remember where you read it first 😉

if you don't have a dedicated food waste service, howabout a Wormery? weve used one for the past 4 years hardly any food waste goes into the household waste

cheekyboy - Member
No, because landfills also need food waste to produce electricity, no one ever mentions landfills producing electricity do they, they only knock out around 5 Terawatt Hours mind you
Poor old landfill eh ! not to worry though, there is a very resillient group of boffins looking at an efficient way of gasifying landfill waste to power engine/turbine driven generators, its still away off yet in terms off getting the efficiency balance of the gas production however if they succeed it could be a game changer.

Remember where you read it first

Aren't Chinook Sciences going down this route already?
http://www.chinooksciences.com/energy-recovery/#.VUnjVvnF9T8