apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I had that exact container for a while, and it hid everything so well that I never emptied it. Quite gross. Now I just use a small metal bowl that can go in the dishwasher, and empty it frequently (every day).

I get the bags - it may cost a bit more, but then we don't get a newspaper delivered, so that wouldn't work for us anyway. I really like the bags - they are easy to grab and take out to the bin. We keep our bin under the sink , empty it every week and don't seem to have a problem at all actually. Don't forget to change the charcoal filter if things start to stink!

We keep the small bin outside on the deck and bang it really hard when emptying into the larger street compost bin. Laziness factor = high

Instead of a pail, I use a bowl in the freezer. I add scraps, they freeze, and when it is full out it goes to the compost heap. No smell, no growing odd creatures, and it provides moisture to the compost heap.

I just use a very small compost pail (it's actually a small plastic pail that once housed cookie dough) and empty it very frequently (at least once every other day) into my backyard composter (made from recycled wood turn out of a rotten basement finishing and a falling apart fence, painted on the outside only). That way the food doesn't have a chance to decompose until it's outside and it's supposed to. Gross factor = low. Cost factor = low. Laziness factor = moderate.

If I didn't compost for the garden and had to take my compost the ecoStation, though, this would probably be a pain in the butt.

We wash our stainless steel container every time we empty it - which is once every three or four days. Keeping it in a colder spot in the house helps the decomposing factor and if you've got a scrub brush designated especially for this you don't have to worry about using it on dishes you eat off it. It's really not that bad.

I like the freezer idea! We stop storing food scraps in the summer because of the influx of fruit flies here in Seattle. I'm going to try this instead. Thanks, Francesca!

I keep a paper bag from TJ's lined with newspaper on the deck. When it gets smelly or full I dump it into the collection bin. I have a back log of TJ's paper bags, the newspaper is a freebie daily and even though I've switched to a tote for shopping I almost always end up guessing wrong and needing an extra paper bag once or twice a month. Also, if the bag is almost empty but gets stinky I pour some baking soda over the mess and gets rid of the odors and the flies.

Another benefit of storing food scraps in the freezer is that it kills any fruit fly eggs which might be on them-- so less of a fly problem in the compost pile! Also, the scraps won't smell if they're frozen-- so it removes the "ick" factor completely-- no smell and no rotting scraps.

We have a gallon Tupperware container with a lid, the kind that can hold dry cereal. It's enough to hold a few days worth of scraps, then after we empty it out into the yard waste container, we slosh warm soapy water around and give it a good rinse.

I love the freezer idea too - if I only had the room! We upgraded this year to a stainless steel bin and splurged on the biowaste bags. So much easier and cleaner. Love it.

I also do the 'fridge/freezer thing in old plastic containers with lids - wherever there is more room. I was literally dumbstruck when I read Grub and he suggested doing the freezer thing. I would have never considered it.

The composting hours at my local garden are only few hours on the weekend so emptying it more than 1x or 2x a month is out of the question. My friend has just started composting too so we are going to try to do coffee run/composting date every few weeks as incentive to bring it on over.

I am jealous of people who have their own yards to compost!

I just wrote a post about this on my blog!
Our solution is wheat bran. Not the expensive food kind, but the super-cheap feed-store kind. You dump on a handful with each batch of scraps -- it absorbs the wet stuff and keeps the smell way down. Obviously, it's totally biodegradable, and it gets in all the nooks and crannies (unlike a newspaper liner or bag). It has totally saved our winter-composting butts.

This might sound unappealing, but I have just started vermicomposting - indoor composting with worms. It's pretty easy to make a worm bin out of a few stackable rubbermaid containers and a lid. The whole thing fits under my sink, with my trash can and recycling can. So far, it's been going well - the worms are really fascinating, and there's no smell.
http://www.css.cornell.edu/compost/worms/basics.html

I assume you can worm compost outside as long as it is not freezing overnight, right?