I use mine, occasionally, as I have my own composting bin in the garden, so any vegetable / fruit debris goes in there….
Am fastidious about not wasting food, so I very rarely have anything which needs throwing out.
Use my freezers a lot, too. . . . .
But mouldy bread, etc.. , which I have sometimes, I put in a composting bag in the brown bin, like last week.
Living opposite the Common there are lots of foxes; every evening I see them and they do visit my gardens (rear, side and front), however with the lid of the brown bin in lock position (handle up) I have never had a problem.
Apart from at the start, when mine was not emptied on the day…., I have not had a missed collection since either.
So to those of you who tried using them and gave up, do try again, please, it is better for the environment too.
Yes, the bags could/would leak, if there is a lot of liquid in them…..; try to avoid that. 

We have also stopped as they were never collected.

I don’t know how many streets were affected like ours but we went from bins being collected from front garden with no missed collections to:
- bin men not taking bins from front garden anymore
- bins torn by foxes as people now leave their bins on the pavement
- two collection trucks instead of one previously
- food waste bins left in the middle of the pavement after the collection

I counted only 6 bins used this week on my road of 60 houses.

I asked the collection guys and they said most people don’t put out the brown bins anymore.

We too use ours on a daily basis. We already composted and have a 'Hot composter' (which incidentally is brilliant) in the garden but I use the brown bin for things the hot composter takes longer or can't compost, such as citrus and cooked foods. We were never given the liners so I don't use these, I just wash the grey bin out between emptyings. We have not had problems with the foxes on our streets, as others have said, our brown bin locks well.

On our street I would say 70/80% on houses use this sytem. I have been waiting for years for the council to start composting - hence getting in Hot Composter a few years ago. As others have said it means much less waste in bin and less smell and is so easy to use. I keep the grey bin on the kitchen island with out other compost bin.

It has always surprised me that so many people don't compost or recycle. On our street, some people put out 3 /4 bin bags a week, don't recycle or compost. We only have a half bin bag each week, for a famliy of 4. Over the years I have trIed top massively reduce the amount of waste we produce and this includes the recycling waste too, by buying less plastic packages etc and I thought most people would do the same.

@countessbinface Here's an alternative for your brown bananas - put them in the freezer and when you have a few, put them frozen into a nutribullet or similar with some almond nuts and cocoa powder and whizz them up.  You won't know that it's not ice cream as it's so smooth and tasty.  You don't need to add sugar either!

We use ours all the time and, it seems, so do all the neighbours. Fantastic idea - we eat a lot of fruit and veg so create a lot of waste that is now being put to good use rather than going into landfill. It's great for keeping bones and chicken carcasses out of the ordinary bins, which the foxes round our way are adept at breaking into. The brown bin locks securely and it has reduced the amount of black bin bags we fill.

"We have stopped using ours" - please think of the environmental benefits for everyone else and start again.  It really isn't that much effort.

We have stopped using ours. And most of our road has stopped as well.

I recently read It costs around £1.7m a year, just to collect these brown buckets, so wrong.

Perfect.

Exactly what I needed.

Brown bin = only outside

Grey bin= kitchen (floor in our case, its a 'bin' right?)
Transfer contents of grey to brown bin as required.

There was a leaflet that came with it 😄

The pale green liner bags if you use them, are very thin so I tie up and transfer to brown bin when little grey bin is about 1/3 full, or the bag might split.

Repeat as required

Brown bin never gets full for us. It might only have one green bag or two at bottom. Dont forget to properly close handle .
N.B. handle should *not be in upright carrying position but clicked and angulated forward.

Hope this helps 😁

this is so useful thank you.

again sorry for all the questions.

does the grey "inner bin" ever go outside? Do you tip the grey inner bin just right into the brown bin? Or if you have a liner does the liner just get dumped into the brown bin? I thought the brown bin actually sat on the kitchen work surface!

P.s. we keep the grey one on floor by kitchen bin. When chopping open lid and chuck stuff in.

It gets rinsed out fairly regularly, as any bin might need.

I put a 'Food waste' label on the top :) just in case anyone forgets.

The brown one we leave out back in outhouse and transfer the contents of the grey one as necessary, carrying it out to front on bin days, bringing back after collection.

Top floor no outside space so they leave their brown bin by wheelie bin. It stays there until bin day and gets filled and left out front.

Yes of course all our house are using it for months now, the system works well.

The little grey box stays in kitchen.
Your liner bags for this will run out but you are not obliged to use them. Can use paper . i ordered some compostable ones from Amazon as I like cleanliness.

The brown box is large enough to transfer quite a bit into, the handle is to be pulled *forward* and locks so there is no problem with foxes even though they are resident near and active on bin collection days :)

The food collection is regular and all works well, very pleased.

We generate quite a fair bit of 'food' - vegetable cuttings etc mainly from cooking as I waste very little actual food. Maybe the odd rotten banana or bit of pasta .

Was sceptical to begin with but having spent the Summer in Italy and saw how good they were at recycling I decided to pull myself together and do some good in the world and now I make sure to use it.  Love it and feel better for it!  It's all so easy.

I think I am being a bit of an idiot.

My assumption was it was a bin to be kept outside and you put your food directly into it, as in scraped the food off the plate into the tub.

However reading this I think it's actually to be kept on a kitchen surface and fitted with a liner? Is that right? So I lift the plate and scrape food into it on my kitchen worksurface?

And another silly question, if it's an indoor caddy for a kitchen surface what do you do with it on bin day? Take the whole thing out or just the liner? If it's the liner that's cool but if it's the caddy then aren't you moving a kitchen surface container from a food prep surface to the ground outside next to bins and all the fox **** that is there?

Do you have to deep clean it to put it back on food prep surface?

Sorry I think I'm not getting this but thanks for all replies, this is just how my mind works.