13 September, 2011 
A survey has discovered that slop buckets, or compost buckets as we know them is this household, don’t smell.
Well, doh, that’s obvious. It’s the contents that smell!
Even then, it’s only if the bucket is badly managed and not emptied often.
More seriously, though, I was interested to read that many people waste just as much food whether they put the scraps in the bin or the compost bucket.
I suspect that’s because their mindset is one of separating their waste instead of reducing their waste.
Slop buckets are not as bad as they seem, according to a new survey, that found dumping food scraps in a separate bin did not lead to smell or pests.
As part of their ‘zero waste’ policy, the Coalition want food waste to be converted into energy, rather than dumped in landfill. In some council areas this will mean introducing separate food waste collections. It is also claimed that forcing people to collect food scrap separately will make them realise how much is wasted.
However the poll of more than 1,000 houses found no significant difference in the perception of the amount of food thrown away between respondents with a food waste collection and those without.
via Slop buckets don’t smell finds survey – but users fail to cut food waste – Telegraph.
Bah! The only “food” waste I throw away is chop bones and chicken bones. Peelings and such go into the compost bin.
In our case, large raw bones go to the dog while cooked and smaller raw bones go into the Green Cone under the apple trees.
Aberdeenshire council already employ these in the deveron valley area. They have got compostable bags, and all food waste goes in these they are collected every week. All sold to Keenan composting at New deer.
I’d rather use our vegetable peelings in our own compost instead of giving them to the council to sell on. Mind you, I can’t see Aberdeenshire Council extending a scheme like that out to us. They have a fairly comprehensive recycling collection in the village, where most people are within walking distance of the recycling depot, but don’t provide it in the country because it’s not cost effective. So we do weekly recycling trips when we do the shopping/rugby/swimming run—only to see almost everything get tipped into the landfill skip and compacted. Speaking of which, I spotted a Koga mountain bike in the landfill skip last Saturday. It looked to be in excellent condition but was at the bottom of a 10ft plus deep skip—and you’re not allowed to remove anything from them anyway. Talk about a waste.