In the US, residents have to contend with bears and racoons rummaging through the trash.
In the UK, we have donkeys.
A decision to introduce food waste bins in the New Forest national park in Hampshire has provoked a backlash – after the tenacious equines were caught breaking into them.
In the last few months plastic caddies to recycle food leftovers – common in much of the country – have been distributed to people in the area for the first time.
This has led to warnings that their introduction could spread disease as livestock that has historically roamed free in the area, including ponies, donkeys and pigs, would find them irresistible when left out for collection.
Within weeks of their introduction, donkeys have been spotted in several locations eating food out of the bins in various locations.
Photos taken in Brockenhurst, a large village in the national park, show several of the animals gathered around a toppled over bin eating food scraps that have spread across the road.
Donkeys breaking into the food recycling bins on 23 June 2025. Photograph: Solent News & Photo Agency/Solent News
Posting the photos on Facebook, a New Forest resident, Gail Whitcher, asked others to keep their food waste bins inside their gates and described the scene as chaos.
She said: “The donkeys have knocked over the waste bins into the road and have had a feast all the way down the road on the food waste bins which I witnessed them opening. It’s chaos.”
There are 200 free-roaming donkeys in the national park, all cared for by the commoners – local people who have the right to graze animals – and are said to be vital to the area’s ecosystem.
The commoners said they were worried that the roaming animals could contract foot-and-mouth disease or African swine fever from the food waste, which would be “extremely dangerous”.
Authorities in Hampshire’s New Forest first approved a divisive wheelie bin scheme in 2022.
Under the £5.6m programme, food waste caddies are being delivered to people in Brockenhurst, New Milton, Lymington, and surrounding areas between April and June.
Andrew Parry-Norton, the New Forest Commoners Defence Association chair, said it wanted New Forest district council to change its advice to leave the bins outside property gates and instead to keep them inside. They have also suggested more secure locks should be put on the bins.
“This is exactly what we thought would happen and I think it is only going to get worse,” Parry-Norton said.
“If the donkeys start working out how to get into these bins then they will keep doing it and the diseases will continue to spread, which is just not fair on the animals.”
Households in the national park have been given a 23-litre brown outdoor food waste recycling caddy, and a five-litre grey indoor food waste recycling caddy.
New Forest district council has been contacted for comment.
