We have a very comprehensive recycle programme in Oakville.

I put all my food waste plus paper towels, lint, hair from my hair brush...etc into my compost bucket. The town takes it away, turns it into proper compost and then gives it back to us for our gardens. No charge!

Nothing....either it goes into the disposer or I scoop it out with my hands into the garbage or a cam or something to compost.

No worms or composting here. But I keep a ceramic utensil jar on my kitchen counter. I line it with a plastic bag (saved from a purchase of fruit or veggies) and use it for small items, such as onion peels, tea bags, jar lids, and cellophane wrap (which can't be recycled here). When it's full, I remove the bag, tie it closed, and put it in the main garbage container in the pantry. Meat scraps are tossed into a plastic bag and kept in a bin of the freezer door until garbage day.

Sue

I keep a small plastic bucket outside on the covered patio. From time to time I take it back to the compost pile, wash it out and sanitize then start again.

Carol

Our town picks up trash on Mondays & Thursdays & composts like Sharon's. As residents we get the resulting compost for free. But, we don't utilize that service because we make our own compost as we've got extensive ornamental gardens. We keep a SS bowl in the large portion of the kitchen double sink for scraps, paper towels, TP cardboard tubes, etc. Once a day, DH take it out to the compost pile, washes the bowl, & starts over.

/tricia

I have a disposal but my Mom always used this bucket from Sam's that bubble gum came in. It was always right next to her sink. It worked quite well for that purpose.

Do I need a special bowl? I use whatever bowl is handy, preferable one already dirty from another task, and then when I dump the garbage bowl into the trash, I'll wash it. I have a lot of assorted bowls.

No compost pile. We don't really garden other than to fight back the weeds.

I keep a wire basket (on a glass tray) by my sink, into which all vegetable parings and other decomposable items go, to be periodically carried out to the compost bin in our back yard. The basket allows air to circulate, preventing the peels, fruit cores, tea leaves etc from becoming slimy or smelly.

Meat scraps that don't go to our kitties go into the garbage or the freezer (depending on how close the garbage is to being taken outside and how hot the weather is.)

I have always thought Rachel Ray's garbage bowls were just for the camera- to keep everything at eye level so she wouldn't have to bend a tiny bit and throw something into a normal kitchen trash can.

Bumblebeez, working with a garbage bowl on the counter is really a nice labor saver if you are doing a lot of prep work with veggies or meat. Instead of dumping each potato peel or whatever, just load up the bowl. Agreed, it's not much of a savings to use it for small tasks or amount.

Gosh, there's the chicken scrap bowl, the compost bowl and "meat stuff".
I sort a lot!
Veggie scraps, bread crumbs, etc. go to the chickens.
Potato and onion peels, coffee grounds to the compost bucket which sits just outside the back door.
Meat/bones are frozen until trash day (only every 2 weeks).
Paper is sorted to burn.
Glass, plastic, metal is recycled along with trash pickup.

I use whatever bowl, napkin, paper towel or whatever to stash it in until I'm ready to take it to the proper container.

Many weeks the two of us barely fill a plastic grocery bag with "actual" garbage. Mostly plastic wraps that I just can't avoid due to manufacturer packaging. Grrr...
But that's another whole thread and I won't get started...
:-)

There's NO WAY I'd buy a special bowl for garbage!

Deanna

I was going to buy a compost bucket, but since I empty it everyday, I really didn't need one with charcoal. One day I was in a restaurant supply store and I spotted a tall, round, stainless steel container with a lid that I think is a deep-well container for a steam table. It was about one third of the cost of the compost bucket I had planned to buy. I leave it out all of the time, but when it is clean it is under my island table, and when it is in use, it is on the cabinet. This helps me remember to empty it. Works great for me.

A garbage bowl would just be something else to wash or take up space in the DW at my house. I keep a disposable plastic bag that I have brought home some type of groceries home in on my workspace area. Everything that doesn't go in the disposal goes in the bag to be tossed in the trash. Things like bones, tea bags, etc.

I have a large compost pail that gets emptied into the compost bin when full. For awhile I was using compostable bags inside the pail, but the critters were taking the bags out of the compost bin and I was finding them under every bush in the yard -- lunch bags critter-style.

Over the holiday we had out the big green Tupperware bowl, filling it with all the peels and rinds every meal. It would seem that the critters that raid the pile got a Feast too. LOL

I used to keep a soap bucket by the sink as a compost/peelings bucket until my DD gave me a compost bucket that's "prettier" if that's possible. It really keeps me from running all those scraps and leftovers into the disposal and dump it into our green can that gets picked up once a week. I wait to clean out the fridge until just before garbage day but the peelings and scraps (except meat scraps) and everything goes into the green can the night before pickup. I'm not into composting. If I need it, we can get it from the city.

My table where I do most of my work has a drawer with a sturdy handle. I just hang a plastic grocery bag or two on it while I'm working and I can scoop all the veggie matter in the one and put other non-compostable things in the other one to dispose of later.

I use an empty coffee can, although they're not "cans" any more. I love the Folgers cans. I keep it under the sink, and put my coffee grounds into it. I also use whatever dirty bowl I have to put peelings and scraps into until I take them outside. Sometimes it's my salad spinner basket. I can't imagine buying a bowl specifically for that purpose.

Sally

I had no idea anybody did that sort of thing. I use newspapers to peel apples and potatoes and throw the whole mess in the trash but otherwise I keep the garbage can nearby during food prep.

No garbage bowl here Sherry. If the cats can eat it out it goes. If it can go down the garbage disposal down it goes. If in the summer time I have mounds of stuff for a compost bin I put it in whatever bucket and it goes to Amber's compost bin. No bowl for me. I would not have the counter top room.

Sue

Since I have no sunny spot for a garden, most peelings etc, go down the disposal. For other cooking garbage, I use a garbage "bag" which I hang on the upper cabinet door knob to collect trash that will go in the outside trash bin. That's handier for me than walking over to the trash can under the sink.

Teresa

I don't have a garbage disposal or a compost pile so I do have one small bowl on my food prep area designated as a garbage bowl. When I crack an egg, the shell goes into it, as do onion peelings and any other food scraps from the work done on that counter. Then I dump them into the garbage can.

The one I use was formerly DD's deep and narrow cereal bowl. It's lime green so I can always spot it right away.

I recycle 100%. All kitchen scraps go to the garden. However, I don't compost. Too much trouble.

I have an air-tight container which I collect all scraps next to the chopping board and the sink. Everything, including grease, meats and small bones. When the container is full, it goes to a bigger container in the garage. No smell, no flies.

When the container in the garage is full, I bury everything in the garden, using this special digger which I made using a rototiller:

I dig scraps

Because the scraps are buried so deep, no critters can mess things up. In the video, the ground was frozen; otherwise it would have gone quicker.

Larger bones from making stock get pulverized by a shredder that I have, and get buried just the same.

Over the years, I have buried several thousand gallons of scraps.

I have lots of great tomatoes every year.

dcarch

The more I read these posts the more I realize how progressive our town is.

We have a blue box and a green box. All paper, glass, cans, tetra packs (alas not those damnable clam shells yet) etc go into the blue box. We don't have to sort anything.

All food scraps, everything, meat, fish, bones, veggies plus paper towels, human and animal hair and lots more go into the green box.

I don't have more than a small bag of "garbage" garbage each week. Kitty litter being my biggest nemesis.

The town also picks up ALL our yard waste at the curb twice a month, twigs, leaves, branches etc. We don't even have to bag leaves they use a big vacuum to suck them up.

Then twice a year we can go to the "dump" and take away as much mulch and compost as we want. No charge....but they do encourage people to bring a donation for the local food bank.

It's a good deal.

Chase, doesn't your kitty litter go into your green bin?
We have the green bins here as well (but not in apartment buildings yet), and kitty litter goes in there. That's a huge plus.
With 3 cats, I do have kitty litter!

Like you, our city is big on recycling. Our clam shells aren't recyclable yet, either.

I have a large covered compost bin under the sink with a lid. Every time I chopped something I'd open the cupboard and then the bin and repeat as necessary. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a cooking show (don't remember which one, it was not Rachel) and it hit me! DUH! A garbage bowl, put all of the stuff in it and then just empty it once.
I don't leave it out though and it is not a designated bowl but I just grab something from the cupboard depending on the size I need for the amount I am chopping.

Here I have free recycling, but I have to sort it and take it to the recycling bins myself. I can recycle glass, metal, plastic, newspaper, magazines, styrofoam, milk jugs, plastic garbage bags, cardboard.

Like Carol, I have a plastic bucket for scraps, but like Deanna, I have a chicken scrap bucket. I recently turned my 12 hens into chicken stock since it became too big a job for anyone to actually water them once a day. The chickens were on the farm and oddly enough my sister could go out daily to gather eggs (and use them) but watering was out of the question. Whatever. Now Dave has 4 pigs, so my chicken bucket became a pig bucket.

I kind of compost anything that's left, which isn't much. Dave ran me a deep trench in my garden spot, so compostables are just dumped into the trench and then buried, as long as the ground is workable. In the winter, they get added to the compost/manure pile.

Since I'm here alone much of the time, there isn't much left, maybe a small bag weekly.

Annie

Funny thing is Rachel Ray company will make money selling a bowl for trash. Any old bowl will do! If one wants to make one trip to the bowl, then another trip to the garbage can, then another bowl to wash. Seems silly to me!

But then, I'm in marketing and if I was RR, I'd be selling those bowls to the naive as well! LOL all the way to the bank!!!