what to do with rabbit poo!

Hi folks.
I know different councils have different rules but what does everyone do with soiled hay and rabbit poo? We had been hiding it in the green bin (garden waste) mixed in with other garden refuse but our green bin is not collected over the winter so it has been mounting up. We took a big bag of it to the tip but they wouldn't accept it so we had to bring it home. The people at the tip have said that we shouldn't be putting it in ANY of our bins and when we asked what we should do with it then they just shrugged - "not our problem!". We have slowly been getting rid of it in my elderly mum's ordinary grey bin as she doesn't have much rubbish but this is not a good long term solution. Just wondered how other people were dealing with this. Although they are house rabbits, we clean their trays out every day, so there is quite a lot of it to dispose of.

cazba99 said:

Hi folks.
I know different councils have different rules but what does everyone do with soiled hay and rabbit poo? We had been hiding it in the green bin (garden waste) mixed in with other garden refuse but our green bin is not collected over the winter so it has been mounting up. We took a big bag of it to the tip but they wouldn't accept it so we had to bring it home. The people at the tip have said that we shouldn't be putting it in ANY of our bins and when we asked what we should do with it then they just shrugged - "not our problem!". We have slowly been getting rid of it in my elderly mum's ordinary grey bin as she doesn't have much rubbish but this is not a good long term solution. Just wondered how other people were dealing with this. Although they are house rabbits, we clean their trays out every day, so there is quite a lot of it to dispose of.

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I've never had a problem disposing of rabbit newspaper and litter via the weekly black bag collection. Is there any way to contact the Council directly (phone) and ask what you should do with it?

Personally I now throw virtually all of it into the compost bins, but I would be stumped like you are if I couldn't put it out with the normal rubbish collection.

:| I've always just put mine out with the general rubbish!!
Never had a problem but it's always in a black bag with other general household rubbish. x

Ours goes with the general waste: it's the main constituent! I've put things liked soiled hay in the garden waste bin but not the newspaper or litter pellets (and therefore not most of the poo): ours also doesn't get collected over winter and it gets full enough with well-chewed sticks! :lol:

You can always email the Council waste team, or ring them. The tip will likely be run on behalf of the Council by a private firm (ours is Wastecycle) so the Council may not know what they're doing there ;P

The council have said that we shouldn't be using any of our bins for rabbit waste (my husband phoned). She woman at the council started rambling about a DEFRA certificate....... So I don't know what to do now. I think that I will have to start hiding it in the green bin again once they start collecting but it won't fit in our ordinary bin with our other rubbish. And it's a few weeks before they collect the green bin again. Perhaps we will go to the local woods under cover of darkness and sprinkle it under the trees.....

Mine go in garden waste

Someone collects all mine for his (large) garden. May be worth finding local allotment holders and seeing if any of them would be interested.

Mine go in the green garden waste bin .... never had any problems with them taking it.

cazba99 said:

The council have said that we shouldn't be using any of our bins for rabbit waste (my husband phoned). She woman at the council started rambling about a DEFRA certificate....... So I don't know what to do now. I think that I will have to start hiding it in the green bin again once they start collecting but it won't fit in our ordinary bin with our other rubbish. And it's a few weeks before they collect the green bin again. Perhaps we will go to the local woods under cover of darkness and sprinkle it under the trees.....

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This doesn't actually sound correct to me. Some councils that don't allow pet waste will actually allow the waste from 'vegetarian' pets as they call them.

I'm stunned you're having this issue, to be honest :shock:

MightyMax said:

This doesn't actually sound correct to me. Some councils that don't allow pet waste will actually allow the waste from 'vegetarian' pets as they call them.

I'm stunned you're having this issue, to be honest :shock:

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I know. We must have a particularly awkward council. Going to have to carry on hiding it I suppose. I just hope we are not now 'flagged' as wrong doers and hope they don't send the poo police!

We have always known that rabbit poo is a fascinating topic, but I am absolutely amazed by this. It's not an issue for us as we compost all of our rabbit and chicken waste and I suppose I had always considered that had we not have done this the rabbits' anyway could have gone in the council garden waste bin.

Well, I have had a look online and the information is just so inconsistent and varies from council to council. It would be worth checking your council's website to see what they actually advise there. The councils also vary in their definition of vegetarian pets, with most saying this is defined as rabbits and guinea pigs, but one saying only rabbits and one saying rabbits, guinea pigs and chickens shock.

With the Government strongly promoting recycling it would be interesting to find out exactly what you are supposed to do with it, if the council won't take it.

We know for a fact that loads of people to do adhere to the rules of what should go into a garden waste bin as we bought some peat-free compost a couple of years ago. This is supposed to be what the councils produce from their collected garden waste. Our compost contained loads and loads of tiny pieces of white, blue, yellow and brown plastic! Not what we wanted to add to our soil to remain there forever.

Currently we use the green waste bin, but I suspect our local council will add rabbit poo to the banned list any time soon.
I would prefer to put it in a compost bin, but haven't dared have one since we had a outbreak of rats which was blamed on our compost bin[emoji35]

About 15 years ago our trash department required us to use clear bin bags. The initial intention was to make sure people were not disposing of any toxic waste (paints, solvents, oil, batteries, electronics), recyclables (glass, paper, cardboard, plastics), or yard waste with the regular trash for safety and to save money. Pet waste became an issue for a lot of people so most surrounded it with garbage. About five years ago they stopped accepting bin bags unless they were in hard containers due to rodent problems in some neighborhoods, so they stopped enforcing the clear bag requirement. I put all pet trash in with regular garbage.

Horace the Bold said:

Currently we use the green waste bin, but I suspect our local council will add rabbit poo to the banned list any time soon.
I would prefer to put it in a compost bin, but haven't dared have one since we had a outbreak of rats which was blamed on our compost bin[emoji35]

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Horace, it has to be said, that isn't very bold

I put mine in the general rubbish bin as well [emoji1440]

MightyMax said:

Horace, it has to be said, that isn't very bold

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[emoji15]

I have 2 compost bins, as M-M knows, so normally goes in there. Over the winter, however, when composters didn't do much, I just bagged it and put in normal household waste bin. Our green bins are only for plastic bottles and paper/cardboard.

I know there was a problem with waste and a local rabbit rescue some time ago ... but what are people supposed to do with it?

Babsie said:

I have 2 compost bins, as M-M knows, so normally goes in there. Over the winter, however, when composters didn't do much, I just bagged it and put in normal household waste bin. Our green bins are only for plastic bottles and paper/cardboard.

I know there was a problem with waste and a local rabbit rescue some time ago ... but what are people supposed to do with it?

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:wave: Yes, I have two bins as well. I still put everything in there over winter, and chuck some organic compost activator over it all. It's still been working it's way down the bin, even in this cold weather

We put it into our garden waste bin. Never had the council complain about it.
Over winter they only empty this once every two weeks & we can fill ours within two days so once its full it just goes into our general waste bin.

We sneak ours in our garden bin in the summer if our compost bin is full. In the winter it goes in the general waste in separate bin bags. We have never had an issue. I do feel very wasteful but I suppose even in landfill it will decompose nicely.