Where Can I Recycle......Food Scraps?

According to WRAP, 6.7 million tonnes of wasted food goes to landfill in the UK every year, at a cost of over £8 billion.

The most important way to reduce this figure is by reducing the amount of waste food each of us produces. This can be done by:-

Only buying the amount of food we actually need. This can be acheived by careful meal planning, and using a shopping list when we go to buy food.
Check use-by dates and ensure that food is eaten up by that date.
Learning to use up leftover food.

For lots of ideas on how to do this visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com. However there will always be some leftovers, wether it be potato peelings, used teabags or that tiny bit that could not be eaten.

Much of the food waste that currently goes to landfill can be composted. Cooked or raw vegetable and fruit matter can be composted, however meat, fish and dairy items cannot go into and ordinary compost heap.

So what about the rest? A few councils are beginning to collect food scraps as part of their household recycling collections. If your council does this they will rovide you with a kitchen caddy to save your scraps in. Some councils may also accept food waste in their recycling sites.

So what happens to your food waste? It will composted using a closed vessel, which will heat the food until it breaks down, whereafter it can be used as a soil improver.

During WWII food scraps were collected and used to feed pigs; nowadays, probably due to the large proportion of processed food we consume, giving kitchen waste scraps to pigs is not generally recommended and it is illegal to feed pigs in the UK any meat.

If your local council do not collect food scraps you can compost all your own food waste using a Bokashi Bin. Yes, every bit can be composted in a Bokashi bin - fish, meat, bones and dairy. You simply put your food in the bin and add Bokashi bran, which contains Effective Microrganisms to break down the food. Once it is broken down (in about two weeks) it can be used as a soil improver or added to a compost heap to accelerate composting.

Bokashi Kitchen Compost Bucket
Buy A Composter
Garden Composters And Composting Basics

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Where Can I Recycle......Food Scraps?