Food waste
Do I have a food waste service?
Estates have a door collection service. Place your food waste caddy outside your front door with your recycling. You can also take your food waste to your bin store area.
Private blocks with a bin store may have a brown food waste bin. If there is no brown food waste bin in your bin store, please put food waste in your general waste bag. Do not put food waste in your clear recycling bag.
On-street collections do not have a food waste service, please put food waste in your general waste bag.
If you do have a food waste recycling service
We provide food waste caddies and compostable liners to recycle all cooked and uncooked food waste, including:
- Meat and bones
- Dairy
- Eggs
- Fish and fish bones
- Bread and pastries
- Beans, lentils and grains
- Cooked leftovers
- Tea and coffee grounds
- Fruit/vegetables and peelings
Please do not place any other items into your food waste caddies, including items which state they are compostable or bio-degradable such as bags, sponges, cups and other items. Please place these in your general waste.
And remember:
- Use the compostable liners provided, or you can also use newspaper instead, do not use plastic bags.
- A sheet of kitchen roll on the base of the caddy will absorb any moisture.
- Remove all the packaging from the food before putting it in the caddy.
- Don't put liquid, oil or liquid fat in the caddy, this can make a mess and increase the chance of it smelling.
- Emptying your caddy regularly will help avoid unwanted smells.
Please Contact the City if you would like to order more compostable liners or a food waste caddy.
Get in touch if you would like us to consider your property for the food waste collection service.
How can I reduce my food waste?
There are two main reasons why we throw away good food, we prepare or cook too much or we don't use it in time. Love Food Hate Waste has advice on storage, portions, planning and recipes to help use leftovers to reduce food waste and save money.
"You could save yourself up to £60 a month by reducing the amount of food you throw away*."
You can also reduce food waste and save costs with the Eat Like a Londoner campaign. This initiative offers practical tips and strategies to help you manage food more efficiently, benefiting both your household and our environment.
Most people produce food waste, whether it is unavoidable such as egg shells, bones and banana skins or avoidable such as brown bananas, uneaten leftovers and mouldy bread. The average rubbish bin is around 30% food waste.
UK households waste 6.5 million tonnes of food every year!
Households account for 70% of food waste in the UK. The rest is from producers, factories, supermarkets, restaurants and other businesses.
Have a look at your food isn't rubbish to see the benefits of reducing food waste and how it can save you money.
You can also purchase food more sustainably - apps such as Olio, Kitche and Too Good To Go encourage food sharing by discounting pre-made meals to avoid food waste.
*According to Love Food Hate Waste
How is food waste impacting climate change?
Throwing out food is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Wasting food wastes all the resources needed for its production such as water, land, energy and labour. We can all help reduce our CO2 emissions by being more conscious of not wasting food.
Habits can be hard to change. The wasting food: its out of date website shows us that if each of us made a small change to the way we buy food, use food and the amount we waste, we would all have a big impact on the planet's future.
More information
For more advice from real food waste recyclers in a variety of households and family sizes watch the videos on the Recyclenow website.