Food waste
What goes in your food caddy?
Your food caddy is for cooked and uncooked food waste.
Please use a liner (bin liners, plastic bag or newspaper). Once full, tie the liner and place in your outdoor caddy.
Find out your food waste collection day
Yes:
- Fruit and vegetables, including peelings
- Meat and fish, including bones and carcasses
- All dairy products, such as eggshells and cheese rind
- Bread, cakes and pastries
- Rice, pasta and beans
- Tea bags and coffee grinds
- Shellfish
- Fruit stones and nut shells
- Uneaten food from your plates and dishes
Don't put food waste in your grey or brown bin
- Waste from your brown bin is composted in Todhills, Danderhall. The site is licensed to accept garden waste only, not food waste.
- Waste from your grey bin is sent for incineration at Millerhill.
Don't take food waste to a Recycling Centre
- We don't have facilities to deal with food waste at our Recycling Centres.
Compostable packaging
- Compostable packaging does not produce methane gas and heat like food waste does. Put it in your grey bin.
- More information on compostable waste
Home composting
- If you have the space, you can compost your food waste.
- We collect materials that cannot go into a compost bin, like fish, meat and cooked food.
Won't the food in my bin smell or attract flies and vermin?
- As we collect your food waste weekly, it should not have time to rot down and smell.
- You can reduce smells by keeping the lid of your kitchen caddy closed, tying up the liners and regularly emptying it into the outside bin.
- Your kerbside caddy has a sealable and lockable lid which will stop smells getting out and vermin getting in.
What happens to the food waste?
Your food waste is treated in an Anaerobic Digester at Millerhill, and turned into compost.
This is a biological process where waste is broken down in the absence of oxygen. The waste is sealed inside a container and the oxygen removed. As the heat builds up, bacteria begin to digest the waste, turning it into a compost-like material. This can be used as agricultural fertiliser and for landscaping. The process also produces biogas, which is used to generate heat or electricity. Collecting food waste separately from other biodegradable waste delivers better quality and greater yields, better environmental outcomes and is less expensive.
