HOW TO COMPOST FOOD WASTE

We can produce a lot of vegetable waste from the kitchen and here Dr Anton Rosenfeld, knowledge officer of Garden Organic, recommends some compost bins that are particularly efficient at dealing with it

- Dr Anton Rosenfeld

We are all aware of the need to minimise the amount of food that we waste. Its environmental impact is significant and food waste is estimated to account for around 8% of all human generated greenhouse gases, almost the same as all global road transport emissions!

However, sometimes, even with the best intentions, we may end up generating some food waste. In this case, composting food waste at home makes a lot of sense. It reduces the environmental impact of collection and transport of bulky materials and you end up with something useful that can benefit your garden at the end of it.

Composting food waste brings about a unique set of challenges. Raw vegetable scraps are not a problem – they can just be composted in any normal closed or open compost bin. However, cooked food and anything that contains meat should be composted in a completely self-contained space otherwise it may attract rodents or risk spreading diseases among the population of wild animals and birds. The standard ‘dalek’ type bin is not adequate in this case as it has an open base, and rats also find it very easy to chew through the thin plastic.

There are a number of options available for composting food waste at home.