apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

yea... but how long would it take to compost a gallon of ..stuff? growing up, my parents had a huge compost on the side of the yard and you never took from the top because that wasn't decomposed yet.

it seems to me you'd need a ton of these to actually use them effectively. you'd generate more garbage than you could compost.

Meg- this is a temporary container you use in the kitchen and then empty periodically into the main compost. I have cooked in friends' and family's kitchens with these and they are easy to use and effective at filtering "the stink" - if you have easy access to a compost heap in either your own yard or a nearby community garden, I highly recommend this pail!

My parents had a decidedly non-fancy (read: green plastic bucket) version of this. Really it's only useful as a transport to the bigger compost pile out back, allowing you to build up a day's worth of compost and avoid taking a lot of trips.

How is this useful in an apartment? Is this relavant to small space living?
Do many of us have an 'out back' for a compost pile? I'm certainly not giving up my precious balcony space to composting.

For temporary use, we put our compost in a sealed (tuperware-like) jug. Though it needs air holes to break down properly, a day or two without 'em is fine.

I actually just wrote about urban composting (and my decidedly unglamorous compost pail) a couple months ago. There are facilities to drop off composting materials in a lot of major cities; many more than I expected, anyway.

Alex - there are lots of urban composting options that were brought to my attention with the comments on this post.

Another option for getting rid of the stink is to use bokashi. I purchased a tiny trash can from Target and use it as our bin. The bokashi ferments the organic waste & smells similar to apple cider. My husband doesn't like the smell, so a plastic wrap taped to the inside of the top made a good seal. The trash can came with an inner plastic bucket, so cleanup is quite easy. When your bucket is full, simply bury the mostly-decomposed material straight into your garden or dump it onto a bigger compost pile.

I put all my compost in the freezer. It's a great system. Then I bring it to the East Village--where there is community composting in a garden. 7th bet b&c. Or you can bring it to Union Sq. Greenmarket where the same garden has a drop off spot. Now I cannot imagine throwing food scraps in the garbage.

I got a tiny step garbage can from Target and so far I haven't noticed any smells. And I am discovering that "tiny" = about a week of fruit and veg scraps before I have to empty it, so that is a lovely bonus.

My mother has been using a plastic decorative soup tureen that she bought in china town for years. It is decorative, keeps the compost covered, and was cheap...but it does need daily emptying.

I have this exact composting pail, and I love it. My parents, brother and sister-in-law all have one too. They all live in places with yards and have compost piles, but I live in San Francisco and have curbside composting. This is the perfect thing for collecting scraps until Thursday trash/recycling/composting pickup by the city.

We started composting last fall, and I can't believe how much less trash for pick-up we make. I think the large kitchen garbage can is going out the door.

I have a cute speckled tin enameled pot on the counter. It doesn't matter what the container is as long as it has a lid that fits. It's doesn't smell (and we don't take it out every day . . . )
Still fascinated by the idea of vermiculture (worms under the sink), but I'm not that hardcore. Anybody here actually do that?

As above, NYC Greenmarkets and lots of community gardens accept compostable scraps. I'm sorry I didn't start this years ago.

In response to Alex in DC: I have a small one bedroom apartment in the city and I vermicompost. I can keep the bin in my basement, so it doesn't take up room in my living area. It is important to me that my organic waste goes back into feeding the ground and plants instead of getting trucked off to sit in a toxic landfill. It means a lot to me, actually, to have to consider my waste, even in some small way, and to be able to make a dent in the amount of that I produce.

So I would say that the amount of space you have, or whether that space is urban or rural, is somewhat irrelevant. I think mostly you would just need some problem-solving skills and a desire to compost.

Kristen - Thanks for the link to your blog. There were several very useful links there. (love your blog by the way)

I do remember the Vericompost article in Martha Stewart and the Naturemill Compost Machine (linked from this site) that was expensive but appeared usable in an apartment. I have been struggling with how to deal with composting in my apartment for years.

Please understand that my comment was not anti-composting but that this product doesn't seem to address the issues of the small space dweller. Perhaps there are enough drop off sites in other cities that it works.

I am working with my co-op to possibly establish a composting program. We have some interest (but some of our older residents are resisting the very idea) and I am hoping we can develop something to make everyone happy.

If anyone knows of a DC composting drop-off location, I would love to know about. Please not Arlington, Montgomery County or Fairfax (or Foxhall for that matter) - come on people I'm not renting a car to compost.