Your brown food waste bin
Recycle your food waste with our weekly brown bin collection
Your brown food waste bin is picked up weekly, alternating with your green recycling bin one week and your black household waste bin the next. It may be collected separately from your wheeled bin but on the same day.
Use your small kitchen caddy to collect daily food waste and transfer it to your larger brown bin for collection. If you're part of the food waste for flats pilot, please transfer it to the communal bin provided.
The delivery time for a food waste bin or kitchen caddy is up to 20 days.
If your block of flats has a food waste bin in the communal bin store, you can now use the food waste recycling service.
What can you put in your food waste bin?
All your raw and cooked food waste leftovers including:
- Plate scrapings
- Teabags and coffee grounds
- Fruit and vegetables
- Meat and bones
- Eggshells
- Bread and pastries
- Fish
- Dairy
- Small amounts of shredded paper
- Cut flowers (cut into small pieces)
Please remember to wrap food waste in paper or use compostable bags - see more information below.
What can’t you put in your food waste bin?
- Packaging
- Plastic bags
- Glass
- Cat litter/animal faeces
Wrapping your food waste
Please remember to line your kitchen caddy with a compostable liner, or wrap your waste in newspaper as everything that goes into your food waste bin (including shredded paper) must be wrapped.
You can simply use a sheet or two of newspaper to wrap your food waste in or, if you prefer to use a compostable liners, you can purchase these from most major supermarkets.
Choose liners designed to fit a seven litre caddy and make sure that they are fully compostable. Look out for the seedlings logo.
Due to health and safety requirements, we are not able to collect food waste that is loose in the bin.
Why recycle your food waste?
By using a process called 'anaerobic digestion' we can turn food waste into renewable energy and a useful soil conditioner.
- Eastleigh's food waste will provide enough energy to power 214 homes each year
- Each lorry load of food waste will generate enough energy to power your fridge for up to four years
- A single caddy load of food waste can generate enough electricity to toast eight slices of bread
- Recycling just one tea bag a day for a month can produce the energy to make another five cups
- Soil conditioner produced from broken down food waste improves the soil in local outdoor spaces like parks, farms and gardens
Food waste that is put into your black household waste bin does not get recycled. Instead, it goes to be incinerated, wasting this valuable resource.
How can I reduce the amount of food waste I produce?
You can find information on how to reduce food waste on the Love Food, Hate Waste website.