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How to stop throwing away food waste – with or without a garden

Even with a small garden, or no garden at all, it is possible to find ways to reduce, or even eliminate how much food you throw away by taking a new approach to composting

Several years ago, my food bin was nearly always empty. I had a generous garden, an allotment and trio of greedy chickens who were the delighted recipients of left over rice and pasta. Even in a household of five people, and with little effort, my food waste was very low.

When I moved to a house with a small garden and an allotment a bit too far away for regular trips with a bucket of peelings, I noticed how my food waste bin was suddenly filling up. Especially galling was that without a

compost heap I was buying bags of compost and plant feed while simultaneously throwing away nutrients with every bin collection. With a concerted effort to reduce waste and by taking another look at what was possible to achieve with recycling at home, I have managed to nearly stop throwing food in the bin at all.

A combined approach

I have a small garden (8m x4m), as I produce very little garden waste, I don’t need or have space for a traditional multi-bed compost, so I have taken a combined approach.

  • A wormery for raw food scraps
  • A bokashi bin for cooked food waste
  • A small compost bin at the back of my flower bed for the pre-compost from the bokashi and ripped up paper and cardboard. This breaks down quickly and twice a year I have enough compost to mulch my two flower beds.
  • The wormery gives me a nutrient-rich top dressing for pots and ‘worm tea’ to feed my plants.


Using these combined methods I am able to recycle almost all my food waste without much effort. My garden benefits from the added nutrients and my wallet, my back and the environment are all saved from bringing in bagged soil improver.

Many of the methods I use could be done even if you have just a balcony, or even no outside space at all. It does take more effort – and given our busy lifestyles, not everything here will work for everyone, but some of these ideas may work for you.

Municipal garden waste composting

Why compost?

Nearly half of the councils in the UK don’t currently collect food waste separately. Instead it goes into landfill or is burned. In landfill food waste rots, releasing methane into the environment - 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and the all the goodness in waste food is lost to the nutrient cycle. When food waste is incinerated with other non-recyled waste, the energy produced is used as fuel, however given that 70% of food waste is water, burning food is a highly inefficient process. The government is working towards a consistant approach to refuse collection accross the country. By 2026 new rules will apply which would mean all councils collect food waste and recycle it – producing nutrient-rich digestate for agriculture and converting the methane by-product into biogas to channel electricity into the national grid.

Find out if your council recycles food waste.

Let them drink cake

Broccoli stalks or leftover porridge can be blended with fruit to make a nutritious smoothie. Stale cakes and biscuits whizzed up with milk and ice-cream make a delicious milkshake.


If your council doesn’t recycle food – what can you do?

The best thing that we can all do to reduce food waste is to make less of it. It is estimated that the UK produces around 10.7 million tonnes of food waste of which 70% could have been eaten. The vast majority (70%) is from households. This waste is estimated to represent 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

While these figures are startling, the situation is improving. The UK has committed to halving food waste by 2030 to meet the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. Charities and green initiatives are working to reduce industrial food waste and redirect unsold food to community organisations who distribute it to vulnerable groups.

Top tip

Seafood and nut shells won’t rot down in compost, but they can be cleaned and used as a decorative mulch for container plants, supressing weeds and retaining moisture.


We can also do our part to help reduce food waste at home. This may be as simple as meal planning, good storage and food management to make sure we use up as much of our leftovers as possible before they go into the bin.

Online resources

© Pixaby


 

  • Love Food Hate Waste – Gives advice and tips on reducing food waste
  • Olio – App for sharing unwanted items, including food, rather than throwing them away
  • Hubub – Local Community fridge network sharing surplus food and advice for reducing waste
  • No Waste, Nosh and Kitche – Apps which help manage your food at home so you don’t buy what you don’t need and with recipie ideas to use up leftover food


If you are not in a position to compost your remaining food waste yourself, see if any local allotmenteers or gardeners would like it. Share Waste is an initiative that matches food waste donors with people who want scraps to feed their chickens or fill their compost bins – you may even get paid in veg gluts and eggs.

If you do want to try composting your own waste, there are ways that don’t require a large garden, or even in some cases, a garden at all.

Food waste in a wormery

Composting 101

Often when we think of composting, we imagine a large two or three-bed system, or a black plastic ‘dalek’ composter. However, this is just one method - there are three types of composting you can do at home.

Aerobic Composting

This method is what is commonly referred to when people talk about composting. It requires oxygen for microorganisms to break down the material. Owing to the temperatures which are reached during the process is often known as ‘hot composting’.

  • Breaks down large quantities of green and brown material
  • The heat can kill off many weeds and pathogens
  • Produces large amounts of compost which can be used as a soil enricher 
  • Very little initial investment needed and no ongoing costs
  • Requires some outdoor space
  • Needs maintenance in turning the compost and ensuring the ratio of brown/green material is balanced.

How to make a compost bin
Aerobic Composting

Vermicomposting

Wormeries are a type of aerobic composting as the worms require air. As it is not a bacteria-based decomposition, it does not produce heat. While wormeries should not smell, they do attract small flies, which can be a nuisance and therefore they tend to not be kept indoors, However a wormery can be kept on a balcony or roof garden.
 

  • Produces both compost -  which can be used as a soil enricher or added to houseplant pots –and a liquid which can be diluted and used to feed plants
  • There’s no need to add lots of brown material so it’s great if you just have food scraps to recycle
  • There are some start up costs for worms and a wormery
  • There are limits to what can be put into a wormery and some effort is needed to maintain it
 

Looking after a wormery
Vermicomposting

Anaerobic Composting

Anaerobic composting takes place without oxygen. Rather than bacteria, the organic material is broken down through fermentation. As this process generates no heat it is often known as ‘cold composting’. Burying food scraps – like the traditional allotment ‘bean trench’ – is a form of anaerobic composting, as is leaf mould. The anaerobic process can produce an unpleasant odour, so for the home composter with not much space, bokashi, is often the form of anaerobic composting used. Bokashi uses an air-tight tub an inoculated ‘bran’ to ferment food scraps. Technically the process doesn’t produce compost. Instead, it produces ‘pre compost’ which needs a further stage to be fully broken down.

 

  • Nearly any food waste can be put in the bokashi bin, including bread, cooked food, pasta, meat and small bones
  • As the bran largely neutralises the smell, it can be done indoors
  • No nutrients are lost in the process, liquid is produced which (diluted) can be used to feed plants or (neat) can help clear drains
  • There are costs involved in buying the kit, and continuing costs in buying the specialist bran
  • As the food doesn’t break down entirely, it still needs to be buried or added to a compost bin
  • It takes some maintenance, in emptying, refilling, draining bins

How to compost with a bokashi bin
Anaerobic Composting

Composting units

Biodigesters are getting smaller and are being increasingly used in commercial kitchens, but are still out of reach for the average domestic household. Countertop kitchen compost units are available to buy which promise a clean, efficient way to reduce ‘composting’ time to hours. However the unit cost runs to hundreds of pounds and they can be bulky. Possibly in the future a form of kitchen composter will be built into new build flats – but until then people with a small space may need to look for alternatives.


What composting methods work for you?

Deciding which food recycling methods work for you will depend on:
  • What space you have at home
  • The type of food waste you produce
  • How much time you can spend on the process
  • If you have the capacity to use the resulting compost

Large to medium garden or allotment

As you produce lots of garden waste as well as food scraps, and have plenty of outside space, you could combine aerobic and anaerobic composting methods to maximise how much food you recycle and to benefit from all the compost and plant feed you produce. Throw raw fruit and veg waste in with green waste from your garden into the compost bin and, using bokashi, recycle all your cooked food adding the pre-compost it produces to your bin. Although you have the space for a wormery, this wouldn’t necessarily help you recycle more. If you have trees, you could even introduce another type of composting, by collecting the fallen leaves in the autumn and making leaf mould.

Small garden or balcony

A wormery is a great way to make the most of your peelings and give you top dressing for pots and free food for plants. However, if you do have enough outdoor space for a compost bin, then maximise how much you can recycle by using bokashi bins to ferment your food waste before putting it into the compost. As you do not have much green waste to add, and given that bokashi pre-compost breaks down quickly, it only needs to be a small bin. Adding ripped up newspaper and cardboard to add to either a wormery or the outside bin, will benefit the process and reduces how much paper you put out for recycling.

No outdoor space

If you can afford to invest in a countertop composter, you will be able to recycle a lot of food easily and cleanly, otherwise it does take trial and error to compost indoors – though it is possible. Carefully managed wormeries can be housed indoors, as can bokashi, and there are small aerobic compost kits available to buy like the LFC bag which can be kept on a veranda. You can also use local social media groups to reach out to local gardening groups who may be keen to take your excess ‘worm tea’, bokashi pre-compost or raw peelings.

Food waste, food poverty and climate change are problems we face as part of a community. By working together and doing as much as we are able ourselves, we can enjoy the food on our plate all the more knowing that what we leave will go on to become a tasty meal of leftovers, a feast for the soil or a treat for a neighbour’s chickens. Things are going in the right direction and with greater awareness and education, recycling food will be the norm and our plants and planet will benefit – a truly delicious prospect.

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About the author – Jenny laville

RHS Digital Editor for Shows, Jenny is RHS level 3 qualified and has had allotments for over 15 years. She currently looks after a plot in Buckinghamshire.

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Having a wormery

Having a wormery

How to compost with bokashi

How to compost with bokashi

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