No matter how hard we try, inevitably there will be a time when we have something in the kitchen that cannot be eaten.

• Vegetable peelings
• Meat scraps
• A burnt offering
• A long forgotten something you find at the back of the cupboard, refrigerator or freezer
• Something in damaged packaging that has gone bad

Some food waste is unavoidable, what you do with it is the important thing.

Should you bin it?

Food waste in a landfill site rots down over time an-aerobically, without air, generating green house gasses which are released into the atmosphere. Increasingly councils are looking at ways to help reduce food waste in landfill sites by providing householders with bins specifically for food waste. This waste is transported to a central processing site and ultimately turned into a composted material. However if you don't have access to food waste bins and/or want to reduce your food miles this may not be the best option for you.

Should you use a food waste disposal unit?

Waste disposal units are a motorised food processor attached to the sink in a kitchen. The blades macerate the food waste into a runny slop which then enters the sewerage system, a bit like eating it but missing out the middle man. This waste may be collected with the other biodegradables in our sewers and processed to a composted material which is spread on the field to feed the soil. This does not always happen, much of it is pumped out to sea. Waste disposal units are costly to instal and need to be maintained. Solid fats that are poored down the sink or flush down with the washing up water cause very real problems to our drains and sewers where the fat solidifies and causes blockages. 

Should you process it yourself?

All of the food waste we generate in our own homes can ultimately be processed and disposed of at home. Most of us have access to one or more of the following waste disposal methods;

• Domestic pets
  • cats and dogs are great eaters of raw and cooked waste meat, meat products and some bones
  • vegetarian pets like rabbits and guinea pigs will happily much their way through your waste vegetables.
  • Chickens are becoming increasingly popular as domestic pets and are a great way to dispose of pretty much all food waste both raw or cooked although it is not recommended that you give them too much meat.
• Wild birds love to eat;
  
  • Waste bread, cake, rice, pasta, nuts, grains and cereals.
  • Small amounts of meat and meat products including the fat from bacon or a roast and the skin off poultry and fish.
  • Solid cooking fat and the fat from a roasting pan, which clogs up our sewers, can easily be mixed with wild bird seed to make homemade fat balls.
  • liquid cooking oils and chicken fat can be successfully soaked into stale bread.
  • Wild birds are not so keen on raw or cooked fruit and vegetables however they will berries and cooked potatoes.

• Compost heaps are great lovers of any type of food waste however unless you are an experienced composter it is best to compost only raw vegetable matter in a standard garden compost heap. Other food waste can successfully be disposed of using a Wormery or Bokashi bran. If you use a compost heap and a Bokashi bin you will have no food waste to dispose of at all.