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Meat and Bones

Also known as: Animal bones, Cooked meat, Raw meat scraps

Kerbside collection: check your council

Kerbside rules differ across New Zealand — bins, crates and accepted materials all vary — so your council's own guide is the only reliable answer for where this goes at home.

Find your council

Drop-off Location

Large quantities can be taken to a refuse transfer station.

Impact: Decomposing meat in landfills produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Bones can take a very long time to break down.

Did you know? Composting meat and bones at home can attract pests. Check with your local council for safe disposal methods, some councils offer separate collections for food waste including meat and bones.

Find your council

Your council is the authoritative source for local collection rules.

In short

The one thing that is true everywhere is that meat and bones should not go in an ordinary home compost heap — it cannot get hot enough to deal with them safely, so they rot rather than compost and reliably attract rats and flies. Whether your council collects them, and in which bin, varies around the country, so check their rubbish and recycling guide. A bokashi system or a commercial food-scraps service can handle them because both reach conditions a backyard heap never will.

What it's made of

What something is made from is what decides where it can go — this is usually the reason an item can't be recycled.

Meat is protein, fat and water — it breaks down fast and smells while it does.
Bone is mostly calcium phosphate, which is very slow to break down and survives ordinary composting almost intact.
Cooked fat solidifies as it cools, which is what makes it such a problem in drains.

Before you get rid of it

Drain off any liquid or fat first — never down the sink.
Wrap scraps in newspaper or an old paper bag to control smell and keep the bin cleaner.
If collection day is several days away, keep scraps in the freezer until the night before. This is the single most effective trick for a bin that does not smell.
Let cooking fat cool and solidify before you deal with it — the one rule everywhere is that it must never go down the sink.

Common mistakes

Putting meat and bones in a home compost heap. A domestic heap does not reach the temperature needed, so the meat rots rather than composts, and it reliably attracts rats, flies and neighbourhood cats.
Pouring fat, oil or gravy down the sink. It solidifies in the pipes and is a leading cause of household blockages and of the fat build-ups that clog public sewers.
Putting bones in the recycling bin — there is no stream that takes them.
Assuming a green or garden waste bin will take food scraps. Garden waste and food waste are different collections, and mixing them can contaminate a whole load.

Better than binning it

Simmer bones into stock before you throw them out. It is the cheapest possible use of something you have already paid for.
A bokashi bin ferments rather than composts, and unlike an open heap it can handle small amounts of meat and bone. The fermented output still needs burying or adding to a larger system.
Where your council runs a food-scraps collection, that is the best route — industrial composting and anaerobic digestion reach temperatures a backyard heap never will.
Raw bones are sometimes given to dogs, but cooked bones should never be — cooking makes them brittle and they splinter.

What happens to it

Food waste that goes to a commercial facility is either composted at high temperature or fed into anaerobic digestion, where microbes break it down without oxygen and the methane produced is captured for energy. Both processes get hot enough to deal with pathogens, which is precisely what a backyard heap cannot do. Meat and bones sent to landfill instead break down without oxygen and generate methane that is usually not captured.

Questions people ask

Can you compost meat and bones?

Not in an ordinary home compost heap. It will not get hot enough, so the meat putrefies instead of composting and draws in rats and flies. A bokashi system can handle small amounts because it ferments rather than rots, and a commercial food-scraps facility can handle them because it runs far hotter.

Can meat and bones go in a council food scraps bin?

Where a kerbside food-scraps collection exists it commonly does accept meat and bones, because the material goes to industrial processing. Acceptance is not universal though, so check the list your own council publishes before you put them in.

How do I stop the rubbish bin smelling of meat?

Freeze the scraps and put them out on collection morning. Wrapping them in newspaper first helps as well. The smell comes from bacteria multiplying in warmth, so keeping the scraps cold until the last moment removes the cause rather than masking it.

What do I do with cooking fat and oil?

Let it cool and set first, then check your council’s guide for where it should go. The part that matters everywhere is never pouring it down the sink — it hardens in the pipes and is one of the most common causes of household and public sewer blockages.

Can I give the bones to my dog?

Not cooked ones. Cooking dries bone out and makes it brittle, so it splinters into sharp fragments. If you give bones at all, raw is the usual advice, and your vet is the right person to ask about your particular dog.

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