What Goes In My Compost Bin

This is is a list of the things I put in my tumbler bin, including a bunch of things that are unorthodox. The line for me is “will it compost”, which manages to include things like chicken bones and junk mail and excludes things like bottled juice and paper towels.

• Okay

  • Tissues
  • Napkins
  • Cooked chicken bones
  • Coffee grounds and filters
  • Egg shells
  • Spent egg wash from deep-fry sessions (that is if I don’t give it to my dog first)
  • Paper – I put all my spent paper and cardboard through a cross-cut shredder. This acts as my brown matter, since I only have 1 tree on my property.
    • Printouts – I double-print from a laser printer for my job at home
    • Corrugated cardboard – I break down the boxes into sheets, then cut it into strips 2-4 inches wide and then stuff it into the 12-sheet cross-cut shredder. I did this to a $50 shredder from Costco for 2 years before dulling the blades/teeth enough that the motor couldn’t handle the torque.
    • Junk mail – little plastic windows and all
    • Newsprint – newspapers, color advertisements, etc.
    • Single sheet cardboard – from those soda boxes with the handles
  • Urine – a great way to get some extra nitrogen into the compost pile. Note: urine + paper will not yield a viable compost pile since both materials are non-living – there just aren’t enough different types of molecules to support a living ecosystem of micro-flora.
  • Ash –
    • too much will slow/cool down your batch – maybe best to mix in after your batch has done with its hot phase.
    • This isn’t so much good for the compost micro-flora, but has nutrients the plants will appreciate (phosphorous and potassium).
    • Note that ash is generally basic, so if you have basic soil (high pH / pH>7.5) this is a bad thing.
    • Coal, has heavy metals in it which get absorbed into plants in proportion to how much there is and eventually the rest of the biosphere.  (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/191/4230/966.abstract) Will be discussed in another post.

• Nokay

  • Raw bones (I give those treats to my dog, he eats them like carrot sticks)
  • Cooked other bones e.g. pork ribs (too big to compost well – maybe if I had a wood chipper)
  • Bottled juice – the preservatives in it can kill the stuff in your compost
  • Milk products – they turn to cheese and don’t really decompose.
  • Oils – it doesn’t rot in the bottle, why would it rot in a composter? Oil is a preservative since it limits access to air and prohibits the exchange of water.
  • Pickle juice/Brine – Also a preservative, too much will kill your micro-flora
  • Paper towels – they don’t break down, and at least Bounty's have a habit of getting stronger in the hot humid environment of the composter.
  • Dog crap – covered in a previous post