Topic: | Re: Food Waste Bin | |
Posted by: | Philippa Bond | |
Date/Time: | 08/07/09 07:44:00 |
I was not at all sure about this at first. I had been using a wormery for the previous three years but had already run out of pots to put the compost in and had added compost to the garden. I haven't found any community composting going on locally. Wormeries are more fun than composters but subsidised composters are still available which is a good deal. Once I could see what I was throwing away food-wise I made some small changes to what I buy and also looked for ideas and recipes to deal with other things I wasn't good at managing. (There were always half bottles of pesto in the fridge due to a teenager arriving home and wanting pasta and pesto "now".) I have a small metal bin in the front garden which I line with a black bin bag and I add anything I am not recycling to that as I want to. The bin men take it when I have tied the top so I no longer have a large black bin bag with hardly anything in it to be collected weekly. The days of dripping smelly bin bags and having to sweep what fell out of my torn bin bag are far in the past and I want them to stay that way! Lining the food waste bin with newspaper means that the liquid that collects in the bottom (a lot of which comes from too much tea) is soaked up and helps to allow the contents to leave the bin cleanly when it is emptied. Then it just needs a swish with water and sometimes a quick spray before it is ready to be used again. Anything that might become smelly particularly meat and fish I wrap fish-and-chips style in newspaper before it goes in. It is kept closed and cool in the kitchen in place of the old bin under the kitchen sink (so is just where you need it if you want to scrape a plate or add peelings etc) and is locked when outside awaiting collection. I leave it on the bottom step the night before collection. No flies and no smell. It has been a kitchen revolution. |