Leftover food

Disposing of it correctly

Leftover food from business premises needs to be kept separate from other types of waste and disposed of by an approved specialist company. ‘Leftover food’ means, in particular, scraps from diners’ plates, fish and meat products, pasta, dairy products, and similar. This waste cannot go in your biowaste or residual waste bins. 

To enable you to dispose of your leftover food correctly, Heidelberg’s Office of Waste Management and Municipal Cleansing – which is a certified specialist waste disposal company – offers you 120-liter food waste bins that are emptied either once or twice weekly according to a ‘bin swap’ system. This means that your full bin is taken away and immediately replaced with a clean empty bin. The cleaning of the bins is included in the price.
These rules apply to all restaurants, snack bars, large-scale catering establishments, canteens and other similar places where food is prepared and/or cooked dishes are served. 

The legislation behind the requirement to dispose of leftover food separately from other types of waste is the ‘German Act on the Disposal of Animal By-Products’ (TierNebG) and at local government level the Office of Waste Management and Municipal Cleansing of the City of Heidelberg.

To request a quote, please contact the Office of Waste Management and Municipal Cleansing, which can be reached by telephone on the central hotline +49 6221 58-29999 (Monday to Fridays 8 am to 1 pm).