Lithium battery fires

Lithium batteries have caused fires in the rubbish lorries. Please do not put batteries in your waste or recycling bin. All batteries (including lithium batteries from e-bikes and e-scooters and other re-chargeable devices) can be taken to the Reuse and Recycling Centre at Northumberland Wharf.

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Food waste collections

Food waste

Around 30 per cent of the rubbish we throw away in Tower Hamlets is food waste.

You can recycle all of your food waste in the organic waste collection service. When collected separately from your brown food waste caddies, food waste is taken to a special processing facility, turned into compost and used by farmers as a fertiliser.

Currently, food waste collection is available to all street-level properties. There are also a small number of blocks of flats trialling food waste collections.

We cannot collect food waste from other blocks of flats but support home and community composting. More information can be found on the home composting page.

Love Food Hate Waste website is a great place to look for tips on appropriate food storage and recipe ideas to help you use up leftovers. Both may help you reduce food waste.

How to recycle food waste from street-level properties

  1. Line your kitchen caddy with a food waste liner or some newspaper and put your food waste in it.
  2. Whenever you need to empty your kitchen caddy, tie the top of the liner and remove it from your kitchen caddy.
  3. Take your food waste to your brown food waste caddy. Food waste caddies come with a lockable handle.
  4. Leave your brown food waste caddy at the edge of your property before 7 am on collection day. Check when we collect from your address
  5. We will take your food waste to a facility which will turn it into compost, used by farmers to help grow food.

What to put in brown food waste caddy

Brown food waste caddy content
We can collect any raw or cooked food waste, including:We cannot take:

✅ Plate scrapings: all uneaten food and plate scrapings

❌ Packaging of any kind, even those marked as compostable or biodegradable.

✅ Dairy: eggs and egg shells, cheese

❌ Liquids such as milk, yoghurt, juice

✅ Bread, cakes, and pastries, mouldy uneaten unwanted

 ❌ Oil or other liquid fats

✅ Fruit and vegetables: raw, cooked, whole, peelings, mouldy or rotting

 ❌ Any type of plastic carrier bags

✅ Tea bags and coffee grounds 

❌ Plastic tea bags

✅ Meat and bones, raw meat, cooked meat, bones

❌ Nappies

✅ Fish: raw or cooked fish and bones

❌ Other rubbish

✅ Rice, pasta and beans

  

✅ You can put mouldy food in your food waste caddy

  

✅ Please remove any packaging before putting food waste in the caddy

  

For the Food waste bin

 

Not For the Food waste bin

Starch liners

Starch liners for kitchen caddies are widely available in supermarkets.

Alternatively, you can use newspaper to wrap your food waste instead of using starch liners.

  • Never use plastic bags as they can't be composted.
  • Never use biodegradable bags as they take too long to break down.

Order food waste containers

Order your caddies and start recycling your food waste.

Have we missed you?

Your food waste caddy must be left out before 7am on the day of collection.

Check when we collect from your address

If we have missed your property, please let us know by reporting missed collection after 3pm.