Food waste
More than 30% of the waste in an average bin is food. Food waste is a valuable resource and using your weekly kerbside food waste collection service allows it to be recycled.
Collections in rural areas
Kerbside collections of food waste in areas who initially did not receive this service started on 7 October 2024.
This means all households in Midlothian now receive a clean, simple, weekly food waste collection service.
Find out your food waste collection day
Some areas were initially excluded because of their location, and the costs and environmental challenge of collecting food waste in rural locations. Adding these areas has been possible thanks to £132,085 of funding from the Scottish Government's Recycling Improvement Fund. The money has been used to buy an additional vehicle, and to provide food waste caddies.
Use your food caddy for:
- Fruit and vegetables, including peelings
- Meat and fish, including bones and carcasses
- All dairy products, such as egg shells and cheese rind
- Bread, cakes and pastries
- Rice, pasta and beans
- Tea bags and coffee grinds
- Shellfish
- Fruit stones and nut shells
- Uneaten food from your plates and dishes
How to use your food waste collection service
- Put a liner in your kitchen caddy - you can also use bin liners, other plastic bags or newspaper to contain your food waste.
- Remove all food from its packaging. Most containers can be rinsed and put in your blue bin.
- Put any cooked or uncooked food into your kitchen caddy.
- Once full, tie the liner and place in your outdoor caddy.
- Put your outside food caddy out for collection by 6:30am on your food waste collection day.
Don't put food waste in your grey or brown bin
- Waste from your brown bin is composted in Todhills, Danderhall. The site is licensed to accept garden waste only, not food waste.
- Waste from your grey bin is sent for incineration at Millerhill.
Don't take food waste to a Recycling Centre
- We don't have facilities to deal with food waste at our Recycling Centres.
Internal caddy liners
- Midlothian Council does not provide liners.
- If you wish to buy dedicated food waste caddy liners, the kitchen caddy is 5L in size but we would suggest you buy 7L liners to allow you to easily tie the top of the liner.
Compostable packaging
- Compostable packaging does not produce methane gas and heat like food waste does. Put it in your grey bin.
- More information on compostable waste
Home composting
- If you have the space, you can compost your food waste.
- We collect materials that cannot go into a compost bin, like fish, meat and cooked food.
Won't the food in my bin smell or attract flies and vermin?
- As we collect your food waste weekly, it should not have time to rot down and smell.
- You can reduce smells by keeping the lid of your kitchen caddy closed, tying up the liners and regularly emptying it into the outside bin.
- Your kerbside caddy has a sealable and lockable lid which will stop smells getting out and vermin getting in.
I don't waste food. Must I use the service?
- Studies show that even people who don't waste any food still throw away around 88kg of food waste per year!
- This includes bones, peelings, teabags and food that has gone off.
- Even small amounts of food waste are worth recycling.
What happens to the food waste?
Your food waste is treated in an Anaerobic Digester at Millerhill, and turned into compost.
This is a biological process where waste is broken down in the absence of oxygen. The waste is sealed inside a container and the oxygen removed. As the heat builds up, bacteria begin to digest the waste, turning it into a compost-like material. This can be used as agricultural fertiliser and for landscaping. The process also produces biogas, which is used to generate heat or electricity.Collecting food waste separately from other biodegradable waste delivers better quality and greater yields, better environmental outcomes and is less expensive.
