Food Waste Caddies
Your kitchen scraps go into our hot compost, then onto the garden. Here's everything you need to know, in two minutes.
The short versionHow to use a caddy
Take an empty one
Empty caddies lie on their side on the shelf. Each one comes lined with newspaper, ready to go.Keep it in your kitchen and fill it with scraps
On the countertop or the windowsill works well. Add your food scraps as you cook and eat. Try to keep the outside clean, and give it a wipe if needed, so it doesn't attract pests.Swap it every few days
No need to fill it to the top: half full is fine. Put it back on the shelf standing upright with the lid fully closed, and take a fresh one.
Why the lid matters on the shelf: a fully closed lid keeps the smell in, so the shelf and bins stay clean and don't attract pests.
Almost anything you can eatWhat goes in
Yes please
- Peelings, cores, trimmings and offcuts
- Leftovers and plate scrapings
- Meat and fish, raw or cooked
- Bones (yes, really, see below)
- Bread, rice, pasta, cake
- Cheese and dairy
- Eggshells, tea leaves, coffee grounds, tea bags
- Out of date or mouldy food
- A little cardboard: egg boxes, a torn up bit of cereal box
No thanks
- No plastic, including plastic bags
- No cling film
- No "compostable" or "biodegradable" bags
- No foil, cans or glass
- No large amounts of liquid (if you need to get rid of a lot, the loo is best)
Cardboard is welcome in small amounts. It soaks up moisture and balances the mix, but too much slows the heap down.
Keeping the bins cleanScrape, then rinse
Before a tub, tray, jar or tin goes in the recycling or the bin, scrape the food into your caddy, then give it a quick rinse.
Food left in packaging is what makes bin areas smell, and smells attract pests. Clean packaging plus food in the caddy means hygienic bins and fewer flies.
Help the compost digestChop it small
A compost heap works a lot like a stomach: the smaller the pieces, the faster it digests. So tear up that stale bread roll, and cut up the soft tomato or the mouldy peach rather than dropping it in whole.
While you're at it, have a look: often only one part has gone off. Cut that bit out for the caddy and enjoy the rest.
One small note: citrus is fine in moderation, broken up, but please don't add a whole bag of oranges or lemons at once. They're very acidic.
The science bitWhy it gets so hot
We don't just leave scraps to rot. We hot compost: a big, well built heap where billions of microbes feed on the food so fast that the heap heats itself up, with no power or fuel at all.
- Hot enough to sterilise. Holding above about 55°C for several days kills harmful bacteria and weed seeds. That's why meat, fish and dairy are fine here, when they'd be a problem in a cold garden compost bin.
- Bones come out clean. They don't break down in time, but they pass through the heat and come out dry, sterile and harmless, like little sticks. They can stay in.
- Size matters. A heap needs to be roughly a cubic metre to hold its own heat. Small bins can't get hot enough.
- Greens and browns. Food scraps are rich in nitrogen ("greens"). Microbes also need carbon ("browns") such as paper and card. That's what the newspaper lining and a few egg boxes are for: they balance the mix and soak up moisture.
- It breathes. Hot composting needs air. Turning the heap feeds oxygen to the microbes and keeps it smelling earthy, not rotten.
- Better than landfill. Food buried in landfill rots without air and gives off methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. UK homes throw away around 6 million tonnes of food a year. Composted, it becomes soil instead.
Curious? Wikipedia has a good introduction to composting and the heat loving microbes that make hot composting work.
It's the law nowFood waste in England
Under the government's Simpler Recycling rules, food waste is now one of the streams that has to be kept separate. Since 31 March 2025, businesses with 10 or more staff must separate it, and from 31 March 2026 every council in England has to collect it weekly from homes.
Some councils have been given more time to set up their collections, and in busy town centre streets separate bins can be hard to fit in. Here in Wiltshire, the council's weekly collections start in August 2027.
We're lucky: we have a garden, and someone who knows their composting. So rather than wait, we compost it ourselves, right here.
Where it all ends upFrom scraps to flowers
The finished compost feeds local beds, including the planting at Foghamshire Green Community Garden. Have a look at the photos there, or better still, take a walk past while you're staying.
Stay curiousFind out more
Want to know more about the composting, the garden or what's going on locally? Pop into the Quetzal Gallery at the front of the building, next to the entrance to the flats. We'd love to say hello.