BS: Food recycling boxes!!

Subject: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 03:13 AM

Bloody waste of our time - doing the dustman's job for him!!

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 08:32 AM

Ah, I don't want to think about recycled food right now, thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 07:51 PM

Recycling food or recycling food containers?

Either way, recycling is something you should be doing to be a Good Citizen of the Planet.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Splott Man
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 04:11 AM

Personally, I'm doing my part of the deal, I just don't trust the council to be doing theirs efficiently.

Splott Man

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 04:37 AM

Damn! Not only did I recently agree with Primitive Tribesman but now I agree with Bozo!

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 04:49 AM

According to 'Them', people are throwing too much food away. I have the 'waste not want not' mentality, and use up food rather than chuck it out. Perhaps people don't have the time or the expertise to cook up leftovers in tasty ways? Just after the War, we had the Pig Man who came round in a little van for leftover scraps. Sell-by dates also convince folk they'll be poisoned if the stuff is more than a day old. I see supermarket trolleys positively groaning with heaps of food, and wonder how any family can possibly eat so much. I can honestly say that IF our local Council introduced these boxes, there would be hardly anything in ours!
Richard, be careful, you're getting very congenial in your old age!!! :D

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 05:10 AM

Yeah, I remember the 'pig's pail'. Went out with the ashes twice a week. There wasn't any packaging then - all paper bags which ended up in the fire if not reusable. We're like Eliza - wouldn't have much in our food recycling box nowadays.

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 05:22 AM

I was recently persuaded to throw away some old tins and packet mixes - some priced in pounds shillings and pence - after a tin of peaches exploded in my tin cupboard and spread rotting black tar all over the inside...

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 05:43 AM

I make things like bread-and-butter-pudding from stale bread, and use the chicken carcase to make stock. I think one good tip is to review the freezer, fridge and cupboards frequently, rotating the items, and make a strict list of what you NEED to buy next time at the supermarket. People don't seem to have a list with them, and buy on impulse a bit. I'm always deciding what to make for dinner on the basis of using up anything near its end! Even our peelings go on the compost heap. Fat off the meat goes on the bird table. A Food Box would only have a few chicken bones in it. (Our cats would love those, but you risk splinters in their insides.)Exploding peaches! Good job they weren't inside you at the time Richard! Actually though, tinned food can last for donkey's years.

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 08:59 AM

Oh. I thought you UKers were recycling used food. We try to use everything we can, don't buy more than we need, and "make do or do without." Something my uncle used to do was to take a chicken "wishbone" and soak it in vinegar until it was rubbery -- then he'd sneak it in for the kids to "make a wish on".

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: GUEST,Arthur Smallpiece
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 09:01 AM

"Food recycling boxes!!

Bloody waste of our time - doing the dustman's job for him!!"




Servicing the missus!!

Bloody waste of our time - doing the dustman's/milkman's/postman's/coalman's job for them!!

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 09:30 AM

Consider a finished pack of biscuits:

Before - thrown in the bin, end of story.

Now - tip biscuit crumbs into indoors food box, then consider where to put the cellophane wrapping, in with paper recycling or landfill bin and thence into wheelie bin????????????????????????????????

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Bert
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 11:06 AM

I'm with GUEST Eliza here. We rarely throw away anything edible.
Refrigerator stew is a regular event at our place.

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: MikeL2
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 11:49 AM

hi Bert

Don't you think that the refrigerator is part of the problem ??

Years ago before we had them we used to only buy enough to use straight away.

What we didn't eat the first day we ate the next. My Dad used to call the second day " bugger-up day.

I too can remember the pig swill man.....ah those were the days....or were they ???

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Bert
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 12:07 PM

...Don't you think that the refrigerator is part of the problem ??...

Not really Mike. The refrigerator allows us to buy the family packs at a considerable discount at local Supermarkets.

Right now we have a huge shepherds pie that will take a few days to eat. We couldn't have done that before refrigerators.

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: theleveller
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 12:16 PM

Excellent idea. We can now put them in the garden waste and cardboard recyling bin and it's taken off and made into garden compost, which we can the get free.

All our vegetable waste goes onto our own compost heap and then back onto the garden, with the exception of apple and damson windfalls which go to the local butcher to feed his pigs, in return for a nice bit of pork when the time comes, (in about 5 weeks, I'm told!).

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: MikeL2
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 02:35 PM

hi Bert

Fair enough. But maybe you are more economical than many.

An awful lot of food is bought and then thrown away. Many people with the ruddy great fridge/freezers just don't know what they have lurking in there and much of it is no use when they do come to find it.

Like you we do buy some large packs of food but we know how much we have and we eat it more or less straight away. My wife used to work in catering and is a great cook who knows how the plan and source meals.

Regards

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 02:45 PM

I reckon supermarkets very cleverly hype us up to buy 'bargains' of enormous bulk. Those huge freezers people have are indeed crammed with ancient meat etc. My neighbour next door to my old house used to do this. She had lumps of meat that had been in the freezer SEVEN YEARS! And FOUR frozen turkeys! Our freezer is very small and fits under the counter. Once a month I empty it, review the contents, defrost and wash it out. Any food left in is eaten, then we restock it.

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 11:42 PM

Now that you're discussing it I remember hearing something on the radio here in the US about the variety of "sell by" versus "best by" and such dates that are on British food - leading people to toss food before it needs to be tossed- wasting something upwards of 50%? It was a few days ago, so I guess there must have been a story about your bins that made the news over here. Why else would we be discussing your "sell by" dates?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: theleveller
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 03:18 AM

Turning food waste into something useful is a far, far better idea than putting it into landfill and I'm glad that more councils are recognising this. If you want to do it yourself, buy or make a wormery and you'll have a regular supply of plant food and compost.

Freezers are excellent. We have one in the shed that is filled with fruit from the orchard, which will last us most of the year, and one inside that holds general everyday stuff plus chicken carcasses for turning into stock.

Subject: RE: BS: Food recycling boxes!!
From: Penny S.
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 04:29 PM

Some councils already have kitchen waste containers for weekly collection by the bin men. Gloucestershire then tip them in with the garden waste for composting. And presumably sell it back to gardeners. I do my own.