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Burning Waste Food?
rizole
Posts: 2 Newbie
I have a stove and burn wood and fossil fuels in it for heating the down stairs.
Now it seems to me that recycling waste food by composting what I can, and through the council collections for stuff I can't, is a waste of potentially burnable biomass.
I did a trail run last night adding a bag of scraps from the council caddy to a wood fire and it burned quite nicely thanks, a bit slow and cool because it was damp but that was fine because it's not that cold yet.
The only problem I can foresee is the burning of proteins, fats and dairy as I don't know what, if any, kind of residues they might leave in my chimney. (I've read elsewhere that pine isn't a great wood to burn because of the high resin content and resultant chimney residues)
Has anyone any experience or knowledge of this? Is any biomass safe to burn? I assume anything that would normally go on the compost can happily go on the fire but what about, say, fats and anything you wouldn't compost? Are there any pollution considerations over and above wood or fossil fuels? Is there anything I've overlooked?
Now it seems to me that recycling waste food by composting what I can, and through the council collections for stuff I can't, is a waste of potentially burnable biomass.
I did a trail run last night adding a bag of scraps from the council caddy to a wood fire and it burned quite nicely thanks, a bit slow and cool because it was damp but that was fine because it's not that cold yet.
The only problem I can foresee is the burning of proteins, fats and dairy as I don't know what, if any, kind of residues they might leave in my chimney. (I've read elsewhere that pine isn't a great wood to burn because of the high resin content and resultant chimney residues)
Has anyone any experience or knowledge of this? Is any biomass safe to burn? I assume anything that would normally go on the compost can happily go on the fire but what about, say, fats and anything you wouldn't compost? Are there any pollution considerations over and above wood or fossil fuels? Is there anything I've overlooked?
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Comments
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Pine is not ideal but if very dry is ok best is not to burn all pine but mix it up a bit. There is a field of thought that the resin in pine if dry is a good fuel. Not sure about food? if damp you will have the same issue as wet wood and that is that it smoulders this is not good. Burn hard and hot that is the best. I would say stay well clear of oil and fat etc.The measure of love is love without measure0
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I burn the peelings from the potatoes as they cant go in the compost. I peel onto newspaper and make a tight parcel and usually burn it the following days fire ( multi fuel stove)
Now in work we have an open fire and EVERYTHING will end up on that - because people just cant resist throwing stuff on it. All I can say is the chimney is a huge sticky tarry mess and Im just waiting the day it catches fire ( the owner btw is the worse offender constantly burning plastics)0 -
Why can't you compost potato peelings?No free lunch, and no free laptop
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