Anonymous wrote:We cook fresh every night and I swear we end up with a half full brown paper bag of compost. Are you emptying your countertop composter bin every meal??? Is there a family size one??

Yes. Cuts down on the flies in the warm months and the smell.

I use a commercial composting service (Key Compost in Frederick because they service where I am in MoCo), but there are others. We fill a big bucket (like one of those 5 gallon food service buckets, I think?) weekly for our family of 4-5 (one kid at college). It's worth it to me to pay for the composting service because I have done a lot of composting in my time and it's so hard to keep the balance right and not have it turn into a stinky, sludgy, anaerobic mess if you're just composting food scraps (i.e., "greens" in compost lingo) and not leaves, etc. (i.e., "browns" in compost lingo).

I feed it to my chickens but when I used to compost…yes, normal if you cook from fresh ingredients. Always dumped daily in the rotating bin.

If you don’t have space, one of those countertop composters might be a good idea. Lumi? Something like that.

I have one of those spinning bins. I do not put some big things (watermelon rinds in there because it take too much space. Looking forward to spring when it breaks down faster with the heat.

Yes, we take it out at least once a day.

We use a compost bin with plastic compost bags, and I empty it at least once a day. NO big deal. But I think I am going to start just using the bin - and washing it out. The bags do not seem to break down very quickly at all.

Anonymous wrote:I have a compost heap in my yard, enclosed with wire. I dump all the compostable food waste there each night after meal prep. It takes all of one minute.

+1 We're a family of 5. On the counter, I have large Corelle bowl that stuff goes in (including coffee filter/grounds). I empty it into a 2 gallon rubbermaid bucket on the back porch. Every day, I'll empty the plastic bucket into the compost bin (made of pallets) and throw some leaves on top of it (those are in another bin). It's not hard.

Countertop composter bin? I just learned something new.

I have a compost heap in my yard, enclosed with wire. I dump all the compostable food waste there each night after meal prep. It takes all of one minute.

I keep a small tupperware container for my compost scraps, and yes, sometimes I take it out to the bin several times a day. This is such a small chore that it doesn't bother me. Maybe keep your compost bin closer to your kitchen to make it less of a chore?

I have a 2 gallon tupperware -- in summer, I'll fill 1-2 of these in a week. I just keep the overflow in the freezer until I can empty it.

I am the same way, OP. In the summer it’s even worse— corn husks, melon rinds every single week. I end up composting only a small portion of what we could because I just don't have the space.

Anonymous wrote:That seems like a ton of waste?

Potato peelings, apple cores, onion skins, egg shells. It’s all good scraps from prepping. Not throwing away anyting edible.

That seems like a ton of waste?

We cook fresh every night and I swear we end up with a half full brown paper bag of compost. Are you emptying your countertop composter bin every meal??? Is there a family size one??