Wednesday, January 25, 2017

More on Food Recycling


Thanks for all the tips about recycling yesterday. Now that you mention it, I have heard that food waste doesn't break down in the airless and waterless environment of a sealed landfill. I don't mean to overstate my misgivings -- I believe in recycling as much as possible and will certainly do so.

I don't have qualms about vegetable peelings and other compostable vegetable matter. As I said, we can probably deal with a lot of that in our own garden. We do have a garden composting bin with a door and a lid, though we don't really use it -- I just pile garden clippings in a heap and let nature take its course.

What's giving me pause is meat and bones and cooked food, all of which is supposed to go in our recyclable food waste caddies. For example, I threw out the remains of a chicken carcass last night, and as I did so, I thought about how ideally it's supposed to go in our food recycling bin for pickup and composting by the council. I don't know how they compost meat, but they say they want "all of your cooked and uncooked food waste, from scraps and peelings to leftovers and out-of-date items." I guess having it hanging around in our caddy is no worse than having it in our garbage can.

Anyway, enough about all that. I appreciate all the feedback. It's just going to be an adjustment. I ordered our new food waste caddy this morning. Woo hoo!

Dave and I have been having fun watching recorded episodes of "Gogglebox" the last few nights. I can't believe I've never mentioned this show, but if the search function on my blog is to be believed, I haven't. It's basically a show about people watching television -- the same families each week, watching selected episodes of popular TV shows and making quips and comments about them. Kind of like "Mystery Science Theater," but with a more diverse cast and no robots. We've watched it for many seasons now and it cracks us up. It's also a really good way to get a quick tutorial on shows like "The X-Factor" and "Strictly Come Dancing" that we don't watch, but should know at least a little about. There are Gogglebox videos on YouTube if you're somewhere other than the UK and you've never seen it.

(Photo: Olga on her morning walk, last week.)

12 comments:

jenny_o said...

Ah, Steve, you're always such a good sport about the comments!

You can check with your council, but here we can also wrap messy foods in newspaper; it helps keep the smell under control, especially in summertime. You're luckier than we are - we have compost pickup only every two weeks and sometimes that bin smells pretty bad (which is why we use cereal boxes to put the worst stuff in). We also have bear problems in some areas not far from here :D Hopefully you won't have that issue.

I wish I liked TV and movies more - I feel out of the loop when people talk about their favourite shows or new movies ... I'm not sure it would be any better to watch a TV show about watching TV shows!

Yorkshire Pudding said...

Perhaps you and Dave should volunteer to appear on Gogglebox. It would be great to see footage of the pair of you reacting to news items about America's brand new golden-haired leader. I am afraid I can't remember his name.

P.S. If you have already got a compost bin then use it!
P.P.S. I put chicken carcasses on our lawn for foxes. In the morning they are always gone.

Shooting Parrots said...

Our local council provides us with those compostable liners for the food waste caddy and they work really well in keeping in the smell once tied.

Ms. Moon said...

I always put my meat and seafood scraps out at the edge of the bushes. They disappear. Foxes have to eat too, eh?

Sharon said...

I've never heard of Gogglebox. I'll have to check that out.

ellen abbott said...

if you are concerned about the smell of the meat food waste, I put all ours in a plastic bag and stick it in the freezer until I'm ready to bag up all the small bags of trash that accumulated in our trash can and take it over to my sister's house for her garbage pick-up. out here in the county we have to contract for garbage pick-up and since we generate so little, it seems an unnecessary expense.

Red said...

Recycling gets more complicated. The more we can keep out of landfills the better.

Yorkshire Pudding said...

Red is so right. All of us should be doing our damnedest avoid contributing to the landfill problem.

John Going Gently said...

Gogglebox is a genius tv programme
Simple
Cheap
Effective
Fun

Catalyst said...

Love that photo of Olga.

The Bug said...

I love Mystery Science Theater, so I'll have to check out Googlebox. I saw some ad about a composter that you keep in the kitchen. I like the idea of that, but I think my dad doesn't need more compost & we won't have a garden at our new place (not allowed). Of course, I just REALLY like gadgets :)

The Bug said...

This is it: https://www.zera.com/