London, and the Green Living is Easy...

What is that? It is our food waste container, provided by our council. (A council is the government of the area in which you live that is responsible for trash collection, streets, housing, etc.).

According to the EPA, the decomposition of food in landfills produces methane, which is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

And in the US, food waste is the single largest waste produced, with Americans throwing away 25% of food that they prepare. That is 96 billion pounds of food a year.

Here in the UK, it is estimated that 20% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions are caused by food.

So alarming are these facts, that many councils now provide bins for home composting, without the work! We have this small kitchen caddy that we empty all our food waste into (except bones, which do not compost). theSaevas don't believe in wasting food: leftovers are always eaten, stale bread is turned into croutons or bread crumbs, cheese rinds are saved for soups, oldish veggies are used for making stock, etc. But there is still a fair amount of waste that is unavoidable. It is really surprising to see how much those banana peels, egg shells, squeezed lemons and potato peelings add up. I would say that we average a full container every two days. We don't have a garbage disposal, so everything gets put into the container.

We then empty our small container into a larger curbside one (kerbside if you're British!) that is collected weekly with the rest of our recycling. You can even buy those handy dandy bags that are 100% compostable, so there is truly no mess and no excuse not to use the containers.

Voila! Less green guilt and making yummy compost for new plants to grow.

I had toyed around with the idea of getting a home compost back at home before we moved, but just never pulled the trigger. I've since been turned onto worm composting, which is what I think we'll do when we move back and no longer have oh-so convenient food waste collection.