Food waste - the new service

Can I recycle it?

We're rolling a new household waste collection service out across Cornwall, area by area, completing in 2025. which includes a new food waste recycling service.

When the new service begins in your area you will be able to recycle almost all your waste, unused, uneaten or rotten food. 

Certain items of food waste can also still be added to your home composting bin. 

What can and can't be recycled in your food waste caddy

Yes please!

• All uneaten food and plate scrapings
• Dairy products, cheese, eggs and egg shells
• Bread, cakes, pastries
• Raw and cooked meat, bones
• Tea/coffee bags and coffee grounds
• Raw and cooked vegetables, fruit and peelings
• Raw and cooked fish, bones
• Rice, pasta, beans
• Soft-shelled shellfish and crustaceans (ie crabs, prawns, etc)
• Uneaten wet and dry pet food but not pet waste
• Newspaper as a liner or bag for solid fats etc

No thank you

• Plastic carrier bags and food packaging, non compostable caddy liners or ‘biodegradable’ packaging
• Commercially compostable takeaway cups, plates and bowls like Vegware
• Large amounts of liquid including milk, oils and liquid fats
• Nappies, clinical waste, cat litter, dog poo or other pet waste
• Garden waste
• Hard-shells from shellfish (mussel shells, limpets, clams, etc)
• Any other material that is not food waste

How to use your caddies and the new collection service

1. Line your silver kitchen caddy to keep it clean if you want to.

   We’ve given you a starter pack of compostable caddy liners. You can buy more from the supermarket if you want. Look out for the green compostable logo. No plastic or other non-compostable liners please.
   
   

2. Empty your silver kitchen caddy into your green outdoor collection caddy as often as you like.

   You can put any compostable shop-bought liners in your food caddy. You must put your food waste out for us to collect in your green outdoor caddy.
   
   

3. Pull your green collection caddy handle forwards and down over the lid to latch it securely closed.

   Every week, put your green food waste caddy out for collection at your property’s boundary by 7am on your collection day.  Or your agreed collection point if you have one.

Remember that while you'll put your food waste out for collection weekly, your recycling and rubbish collections are fortnightly on alternate weeks.

When is my collections day

Check your collection day

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Useful information

Your food does its job best when it's on a plate ready to be enjoyed. Saving food saves money and helps to slow down global warming and deforestation. Reducing the amount of food that ends up in the bin also means you can say goodbye to unnecessary packaging waste. If we all make a few small changes and start using up the food we buy, together we can make a big difference.

For more on food waste reduction visit: www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

Here are some steps to start or revive a compost bin:

1. Check to see if there is compost in the bottom of the bin. The easiest way to harvest the compost is to lift the whole bin up. Any existing compost can be used in flower beds or a vegetable patch. To use as planting compost sieve it first.
2. If there is dry un-composted material in the bin put it to one side.  
3. To stop vermin getting into the bin, buy wire mesh from a DIY store to go under the bin and up the sides to cover the hatch.
4. Position the compost bin in a sunny spot on bare soil.  This allows beneficial microbes and insects to gain access to the rotting material.  It also creates better aeration and drainage, both important to successful composting.
5. The best compost is made from a mixture of brown, carbon-rich waste like:

• autumn leaves
• cardboard
• egg boxes
• egg shell
• pruning's
• small branches
• pet bedding
• and green, nitrogen-rich waste, such as grass cuttings, weeds and vegetable peeling