Many of us are all for composting, even if we don't have a lick of outdoor space to call our own. Some have the luxury of slightly larger kitchens of cabinet space, but others are doing good if they can open their oven and refrigerator doors at the same time. If your kitchen feels a little small, here's 5 places to place a compost bin and a few of our favorite resources for making it happen!
1. Under The Sink: This is the go-to answer for any size kitchen as tucking things away neatly out of sight. If you have cabinets at all, this can be one of the easiest answers to keep things out of the traffic pattern. Sometimes food and kitchen prep tools can be hung on the wall or put on narrow shelves where a composting bin can't.
2. In Your Oven: Now we're not suggesting you slowly roast your wormy composting critters, not by a long shot! Time and time again, we've asked how often you use your ovens and if you keep anything else in them. Many urban home owners who often eat out, or use a toaster oven more than the bigger version, have a big empty space that can be filled. Many keep pots and pans in it, others keep cookbooks, we think it's a great space for a composting bin, though we might suggest removing the racks to make things easier, or even replacing one with a wooden plank for extra support.
3. Under A Plant Stand: Although most traditional plant stands won't make room for such a thing, we think making one or repurposing other furniture for the task is a great idea. It can be round, it can be square, but something where your bin can tuck out of sight while still serving another function in your kitchen is a good one.
4. On Your Counter: Even if this isn't our first choice, we'd rather have a composting system in place than go without. You could even make a box that slid in around your composting unit and paint the outside with chalkboard paint or make it a place to pin up notes or recipes in your kitchen. Giving the exterior functionality instead of just being bummed it takes up 1.5 feet of the 3 feet of countertop you have!
5. Not In The Kitchen: While this answer seems completely backwards logic from the title of the post, more often than not, living spaces with kitchens of a super small caliber, do have a little extra space somewhere else around the house. Although it seems like composting systems should live in the kitchen, there's nothing that says they have to. By keeping a food pail on your countertops, it's really not a big deal to transfer it somewhere else in the house once it fills up. Maybe it's on the floor of a closet, under the sink in the bathroom, or even under the side table in your living room. Just because it's breaking down food material doesn't mean it has to be in the kitchen. If you live by that logic then it means none of us can ever snack on pizza and watch a movie in the living room at the same time again!
Now that your confidence is boosted that you'll be able to find a space for some indoor kitchen composting, here's a few places of reference to get you started. They are great refreshers, even if you already have a system in place!
Small Kitchen Composting Methods & Ideas
• How To Start a Home Worm Composting System
• Best Composters & Tools 2009
• Good Question: Composting Without a Yard?
• Urban Composting
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I keep my compost in an airtight container in the freezer. That way it doesn't smell in the summer, and by using an airtight container, you can be sure your ice cubes won't taste like compost.
I've got a composter out in the back yard, and something they sold with it called a "kitchen keeper" to toss scraps into before we take a load outside.
We've been keeping the "kitchen keeper" under the sink, alongside the trash and recycling, but lately have noticed that's it's attracting/hatching flies.
Any tips on what to do about this? The compost in the freezer idea above sounds good, but doesn't compost need to create heat to work?
Oddly, mine is in the dining room. My tiny kitchen ends at the counter.. none of the cupboards are tall enough to fit my NatureMill in. I have an etagerie with a garbage can under it, and cookbooks on the shelves. I put the composter between the counter and the etagerie with the recycling on top. Not ideal, but it works.
in san francisco we have compost pick up in addition to the trash and recycling. i have a *very* small kitchen and also i live alone, so it takes a while to accumulate a large amount of scraps/waste.
i keep my compost in the refridgerator (on the inside of the door) and rather than having a designated bin, i just use whatever compostable container i already have on hand. for example - i drink a lot of coffee and i buy coffee-mate in those large cardboard containers much like a milk or juice carton (which i rarely purchase) - when they're empty i rinse them out, tear off the plastic spout and use the container to collect the food scraps and used coffee filters, etc.
also, many restaurants in the area use compostable take-away containers, whether it's a simple cardboard chinese food box or the pastic-y biodegradable ones. and i don't buy coffee out much, but when i do the cardboard cups come home with me and get rinsed out for this purpose.
collecting waste in small quantities like this means that i'm never holding a large amount of scraps in my fridge, and they get taken out to the apartment building collection bin every few days and i don't have to worry about odors or attracting pests.
I noticed since I started using compost bags that there was an immediate reduction of fruit flies. I live in an apartment in SF and take the compost out often just in case... I really don't want to attract pests.
I by the compost bags from Wallgreens.
Trish1980: I've always wondered the same thing. In the 10 years that I lived alone in an apartment, I never composted because (though I'd love to be environmentally friendly) I had no use for the compost, no friends would have use for it either, and I didn't want to attract bugs, etc. (Heck, I hated taking the trash down the hall to the chute LOL).
Now that I'm "back at home" again, I have forced my family to compost. We bought a cute little small crock compost holder that looks like a trash can and has a charcoal filter in the top to keep the smells at bay and I just dump it out every day or so in our backyard compost bin (which is just an old rubbermaid garbage bin on wheels that has holes I drilled in the bottom for drainage and some small slits I poked in the top for air). So far no smell (actually, it smells really good, slightly citrus-y because of the lemon and lime peels). I also add some "rot-it" powder to it every few days and turn it. The powder is supposed to help break down the food and adds beneficial bacteria, apparently.
Here's a few suggestions for those looking to compost in an apartment and need suggestions on what to do with the end result:
http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/good-questions/good-question-composting-without-a-yard-058688
The resultant compost isn't the only reason people keep compost bins. If the food waste ends up in the landfill and covered up it will break down much much more slowly. Turning it quickly back into dirt is much better for the environment.
We've got a tiny patio, but I really wanted to cut down on waste, without spending a ton of money on a NatureMill or utilizing all of our patio space with a commercial compost barrel (also pricey). I decided to be adventurous and try to DIY it: I bought a dark blue 18 gallon Rubbermaid storage container, drilled holes in the sides and the bottom, and made to sure to start off my compost with a fair amount of dry material (rocks at the bottom for drainage, then some newspaper, dead leaves I found while walking the dogs, and some organic potting soil). I use a small shovel to turn the compost every 2-3 days, and make sure to bury my scraps when I add them to the bin each week -- it's been working out great. It smells like dirt and citrus -- because of citrus scraps, and also because I spray it with orange oil/water to help keep the flies away. If I feel like I'm adding too many scraps to the pile, I'll stick them in a blender prior to putting them into the compost. In the meantime, I freeze scraps in a ziploc bag until I'm ready to toss them in. Your compost really shouldn't smell or attract many pests if the ratio of wet to dry matter is balanced (fruit flies are another story, but the bottle with apple cider vinegar is a great trap); if it's attracting roaches or rodents, then the balance is off or there's something in it that shouldn't be there.
I've also seen someone DIY a 5 gallon paint bucket in a similar manner, but since we generate more food scraps, I went with the Rubbermaid instead; still, that's always another cheap and compact balcony/fire-escape/patio option.
While we do have potted plants on the patio, we generate more compost than we need. I am lucky enough to have some friends with potted plants or gardens, but there are also a few plants at work that I'll bring in some baggies of compost "food" for. If those aren't options for you, or if you don't want to deal with rationing out piles of dirt, try listing it for free on Craigslist or Freecycle, doing a web search for community gardens that might be interested, or even doing a guerrilla-style fertilization of sidewalk trees/flowers.
A friend of mine showed me that you can keep your kitchen waste in the freezer. It has been working great for me, there is no smell and no flies from leaving the food out. Then when my container in the freezer gets full I take it out to my compost tumbler