Food waste is collected every week on the same day as your rubbish, by a different crew. Find your bin collection day.
Important: if there are plastic bags in your caddy, it won’t be emptied.
What you can put in your caddies
You can put all raw and cooked food leftovers into your caddies, including:
- all uneaten food and plate scrapings
- tea bags (biodegradable and non-biodegradable)
- coffee grounds
- out of date or mouldy food
- raw and cooked meat, including bones
- raw and cooked fish, including skin and bones
- shellfish and seafood shells
- dairy products, such as cheese
- eggs and egg shells
- rice, pasta and beans
- baked goods such as bread, cakes and pastries
- fruit and vegetables, including raw and cooked vegetables and peelings
- pet food waste
What you cannot put in your caddies
Please do not put the following in your caddies:
- packaging of any kind (except compostable bag to line the caddy)
- plastic bags
- glass
- liquids such as milk (these may leak during transport)
- cat litter or animal faeces
- compostable cutlery or compostable packaging
- garden waste – you can compost garden waste at home or allotment, or use our garden waste collection service
How to use your caddies
You should have a small 5-litre indoor caddy and a large 23-litre outdoor caddy.
You can request a new caddy online.
Caddy liners
If you use caddy liners, make sure they’re fully compostable and have the seedling logo, or say they are 100% compostable with the reference EN13432.
You can also line it with newspaper, which will be composted.
You do not have to use liners. You can wash the caddy regularly to keep it clean.
Putting your caddies out for collection
Put your large outdoor caddy and your black bin or bags at the front boundary or on the pavement by 6am.
Make sure your caddy is easy to see and not placed between your rubbish and recycling bins. The handle should be straight up or all the way forward to lock the lid.
What happens to your food waste
In Portsmouth, rubbish bins and bags still contain around 20% of food waste. By separating your food waste, you reduce the amount sent to incineration.
Food waste collected in grey caddies is sent to a specialist facility where it’s broken down by micro-organisms in a process called anaerobic digestion (AD). The process creates a gas that can be used as fuel and a nutrient-rich material that can be used as fertilizer.
For more information on anaerobic digestion, visit The Official Information Portal on Anaerobic Digestion.