Commercial food waste

[Blueberri]

Hi everyone
I'm hoping to have an allotment in the very near future and thought it would be a good idea to ask local restaurants coffee shops etc for their compostable waste. Do you think that this would be an idea they might go for?

[KevinM67]

I wouldn't ask them for their food waste - however, coffee grounds are great and most cafes would gladly give them away.

[Blueberri]

I was thinking all the veg skins, should have clarified the food waste bit. Thanks

[Scarlet]

I think you may find there are laws which ensure that commercial food waste - even veg peelings are disposed of correctly. The foot and mouth outbreak springs to mind.

[lottie dolly]

I would not even entertain their food waste,not only what has already been said,you also need a balanced of veg,plus you would have all sorts of undesirables as well,what you could do is,ask people you know to save you certain items,that way you know whats in it,you could give them a list of what you would like,including some paper,look up what things you can compost for your personal list.

[lolie]

I was thinking all the veg skins, should have clarified the food waste bit. Thanks

They're not going to separate out the meat and fish, let alone the citrus and onion scraps. You might also find the sheer volume a bit much.

[Jay22]

Well known coffee shops are happy to give you their used grounds, only thing is when I use them they seem to go mouldy very quickly. Do they repel slugs and snails?

[Paulie]

Allelopathy

I read a piece by James Wong a while ago which suggests that coffee grounds may have a negative effect on nearby plants. The theory goes that this may be a case of 'allelopathy' - where plants (in this case coffee plants, obviously) release chemicals which suppress the growth of plants which would be competitors. My guess is that this effect would be negligible if the grounds were diluted by mixing with other materials and composted.

The article is here if anyone wants to read it:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...nts-its-a-myth

[Blueberri]

Thank you for the feedback everyone, I think I might leave that train of thought and go for the asking friends and family as someone further up suggested. I appreciate the feedback 😁😁

[bario1]

Yep, you don't want to get a phonecall every 30 minutes saying 'our bin's overflowing, I thought you wanted our scraps!!?'...
W@itrose have a bin full of coffee grounds in their cafes for customers to help themselves to... and St@rbucks do something similar I think.
I get coffee grounds from my work whenever I want, and I also pick up bags of shredded cardboard once a month from a local community centre - they have to pay to dispose of it, apparently. You don't need a lot of food scraps for compost, maybe 30% of the material that goes in - any more and it can turn to sludge.

[KevinM67]

I read a piece by James Wong a while ago which suggests that coffee grounds may have a negative effect on nearby plants. The theory goes that this may be a case of 'allelopathy' - where plants (in this case coffee plants, obviously) release chemicals which suppress the growth of plants which would be competitors. My guess is that this effect would be negligible if the grounds were diluted by mixing with other materials and composted.

The article is here if anyone wants to read it:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...nts-its-a-myth

I love stuff like this, that busts some myths that we hold dear when gardening - thanks for posting it.

I done a little bit of searching for info on it yesterday and it seems composted coffee grounds are fine, also it doesn't affect certain plants.

I tried putting it on the beds last year to try and deter slugs - but it never worked. There were loads of the their slimy trails all the way through it and the lettuce still got nibbled.

I will still definitely add it to my compost heap - the worms love it and it smells gorgeous.

[Blueberri]

I had the same thought about coffee grounds for slugs in my back garden, didn't deter them in the slightest. Thanks for the tip for cardboard from community centres, was just going to go to superstores but it,'ll be better to help someone out community wise 😁

[Chris11]

Welcome BB

I like your attitude of trying to find ways to enrich your planned allotment.

Thinking laterally, in addition to the coffee grounds and friends, there may be some other options that might be worth looking for locally.

There are lots of small independent animal rescues for things like Rabbits and Guinea Pigs that might be happy for you to collect. If they're using wood shavings then that mix with poo would be pretty safe and rich for compost.

Also there are lots of home brewers and small scale Micro Breweries that will have lots of spent grain/yeast/hops sediment from the brewing process.

I've seen both of the above advertised locally as wants/offers, so hopefully you might find the same.