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How To Dispose of Your Food & Organic Waste Responsibly

assorted citrus fruits in cotton sack on white surface

Food waste occurs in almost every facet of the world. You’ll find food wastage in farms, where food is produced, during transportation to and in facilities where food is processed, retail stores and markets where they are sold, restaurants or other commercial outlets where they are prepared for final consumption, and homes, residencies, or commercial centres where they may also be prepared and consumed.

Most people know that it’s important to dispose of many waste materials responsibly. People sometimes endeavor to recycle their plastic waste, do some paper or cardboard recycling, drop off their old appliances at a recycling facility near them or hire a disposal professional for mattress disposal or some other furniture they no longer need. 

However, most people are fine with tossing organic waste (or food waste) directly into the garbage bin.bIt’s easy to chug this up to the biodegradability of food waste. However, treating organic or food waste in this way isn’t the most sustainable or responsible way to dispose of your food waste. It’s important to start your food waste composting and organic waste recycling today.

photo of a dump truck across buildings

Here’s Why Dimension Thinks You Should Dispose of Food Waste Responsibly

About one-third of all foods produced for consumption by people around the globe go to waste every year. All this food that are would be enough to feed more than 2 billion people every year. Organic waste from industrialized countries occurs mostly in retail stores, commercial outlets, and consumer levels. This accounts for up to 40% of food loss. 

With food waste of almost 1.3 billion tons per year, it would be irresponsible and unsustainable to leave this mass to biodegradation. The harmful environmental effect would be massive. In 2018, food waste accounted for 24.14% of the 146 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) that ended up in landfills. Of this, 4.15% (2.6mt) of the food waste was composted. 

When food is left to fill our landfills, the decomposition process creates a lot of greenhouse gases which are harmful to the environment. Methane, a strong heat-trapping gas, and carbondioxide are created, both of which contribute significantly to climate change. 

Your unappetizing food scraps are actually gourmet fuel for renewable recycling practices. If we dispose of our food waste responsibly, ensuring that they’re eventually composted or recycled, we:

-reduce landfill waste

-reduce carbon footprint

-capture renewable energy

-restore nutrients to the soil

calm female sorting organic trash in kitchen in light room

Ways To Recycle Your Food Waste

Composting the Food Leftovers

Composting is relatively easy, and it’s a very sustainable way of managing your food waste. You can recycle packaging materials such as cardboard and newspaper (you’d have to shred them), wood chips and dead leaves, tea bags, nut shells and other food leftovers, weeds, vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, coffee filters, etc fruit waste, and grass clipping. 

Once you’ve collected these items in a pile, place them in a cool, moist spot in your garden or backyard, and add some water regularly. The garbage pile will decompose to give a dark and dry texture. You can then use this compost to fertilize your garden instead of getting commercial fertilizer. 

To avoid odour, ensure you don’t add any fat or meat products. Also, you can keep adding to the pile and make sure the pile or bin is in a spot where it can get enough aeration. 

You can also do your composting indoors using a bin. You put your enclosed bin containing your composed pile in a designated space and use earthworms which feed on the waste and produce nitrogen-rich casting which you can use as compost. This method of using several worms (white worms, red wigglers and other earthworms) is called worm composting or vermiculture. 

Find a Farmer or Neighbour 

An alternative to composting yourself is to find a local farm near you or a neighbour that is compost curious or that regularly composts. You can simply ask if it’s okay for them to add your food waste to their compost pile.

With farms, it may be possible to feed their livestock food waste. Although, there may be regulations regarding this. Your state may have some food materials such as high salt food waste and dairy banned from being fed to animals.

Find a Composting Facility near You

Many cities have a composting facility that collects organic waste for composting. You should try and find one in your municipal. You can do this by searching “composting facility near me”. If you do find one near you, you can talk to them to clarify what kinds of food waste they do and do not accept. Your recycling coordinator may also be able to help with these inquiries.

Food Waste To Energy

Another way to responsibly dispose of your food waste is by converting it to biofuel. Microbes can decompose your food waste by anaerobic respiration to produce methane. This methane can be used to produce electricity, heat and fuel. It is now possible to trap and use all leftover energy in food waste by converting it to biogas. This method is very sustainable, environmentally friendly and energy-efficient. 

Use and Reuse

Another way to make sure the organic and food waste from your residence or commercial place is to divert the waste for usage. You can reuse many food packaging items when possible. When not very possible, make sure they are well recycled. Papers, cardboards, containers and wrappers may be sent to recycling facilities and converted to new packaging

items such as corrugated cardboard. This is a sustainable solution to food packaging waste as they contribute more than 20% to landfill material. You can also find companies to take your food waste and reuse or repurpose them. For example, some companies collect food waste materials like groundnut shells to make disposable but biodegradable plates. 

You can also reuse your food waste yourself. You can use banana peels to polish the leaves of your houseplant and your shoes, use ageing fruits like celery, carrots and onions to make a vegetable stock, make leftover salad into puree and freeze to make popsicles, breadcrumbs from stale bread, candied citrus peel, and peanut and egg shells for natural fertilizers. You can always reduce your kitchen ways by constantly researching and innovating new ways to use them.

However, it’s also important that you consider what you need before buying at all. Make sure you buy just what you need for a certain period to avoid spoilage and disposal. You can also use biodegradable packaging materials or plates if you run a commercial outfit like a restaurant. 


Lastly, you can… 

assorted vegetable lot

Hire a Disposal Professional Trash Disposal Expert for your Food Waste

If you’re not ready to deal with the stress of composting, recycling, transporting or repurposing yourself and still want to dispose of your food waste responsibly, hire a professional waste disposal service and let them handle it. Some waste disposal services may offer this service for a price. Google “Food Waste Disposal Services Near Me” and find some suggestions. 

Dimension can help you out here! Not sure how to responsibly manage the daily stream of organic food waste from your grocery store, restaurant, facility or residential area? Give us a call, and we’ll get to it!

Why choose Dimension for your food waste removal and management?

  • Fertilize crops with your leftover food waste.
  • Reduce the use of toxic fertilizers by composting.
  • Create fuel from waste by using leftover fats and grease.

The world of food waste management is much easier with the experts at TrashWarrior steering the process. We’ll identify the areas that will make you the most savings and have a significant effect on the environment. Develop a reputation for treating both organic and inorganic food waste seriously and address the growing appetite for sustainable choices and planning.

Get in touch with the TrashWarrior team now, and we’ll talk you through a tailored, sustainable organic waste recycling plan that will save you time and help you run a planet-friendly, sustainable business.

We are a team of professionals, and we preach responsibility and compliance in waste disposal. We know how best to handle your food waste and make sure it is disposed of, composted and recycled sustainably.

What’s more? We don’t only handle food waste disposal; we can help with other items you don’t need, including plastic disposal, mattress pickup, couch removal, furniture removal, cardboard recycling, appliance disposal, etc. And unlike most waste disposal/  junk removal companies, we are very affordable.

Give us a call today!

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