Food waste comes from the household, the catering trade, and from shops. It consists of peelings and other inedible bits, and vegetables that have gone off. It also consists of food that could have been eaten, both raw and cooked, but was left by people on their plates. This is called post-consumer food waste. The food that is surplus, from pans and dishes is called pre-consumer food waste.
Another major waste product is cardboard, and this can be torn up, soaked in water and mixed with the food waste to compost it.
- Waste food from the domestic or commercial kitchen: - vegetable peelings, unused gone-off vegetables, unused cooked food from pans.
- Waste food from the plate (customer in cafe or individual at home) : - cooked and raw.
- Unused gone-off vegetables from shops.
Composting of food waste (mixed with shredded cardboard, paper, leaves, straw, hay, or certain garden waste) in a wormery can convert this waste product into usable garden compost. A wormery cannot compost much meat or fish though it can cope with a little if it is buried in with other material away from flies.
If we can recycle it locally, as compost, we can benefit the environment in several ways:
- It is not transported away, so less fuel is used in the disposal of waste.
- It is not added to other waste and buried in landfill which causes pollution (methane for example)
- The fertility in it is not wasted, so we do not need to buy in so much compost for our garden.
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