The Garbage Can Compost Bin

We all want to be greener, healthier and wiser, but we don’t have to break the bank to do it. Here’s my garbage can composter. It’s simple, chic and wallet friendly, not to mention, a good family project.

To Build a Trash Can Compost Bin

• A plastic or metal garbage can; it must have a locking lid
• A drill
• A hole saw bit for metal doors—I used the size for the peep hole
• Three or four cinder block-should have holes for drainage

If you’re getting help from the kids or other enthusiastic family members, its best to put a piece of 2”x4” in the can so it doesn’t get crushed. Even the metal cans can still be bent back into shape, but the lid might not lock as securely as you’d like.

The hole saw bit cuts easily through either the plastic or metal with little resistance. Cut holes all around the can, including the bottom and lid.

Make sure lid keeps a secure lock.

Using Your Homemade Composter

To use, just take it out to your garden and put in a thin layer of soil, then add your compost. Each time you add your kitchen scraps, bunny manure, sawdust, etc, (DO NOT ADD HUMAN, DOG OR CAT MANURE-this unit does not heat sufficiently to biodegrade pathogens) add a layer of soil.

Hey, if you have a fish tank (as long as it’s NOT salt water) every time you clean it, take the waste water and pour it into the barrel, it will add more nutrients to the compost.

The great thing about this composter is that you get to move it each season so you don’t saturate the ground in any one area. I used mine in my tomato beds one year and had fantastic results with heritage Beefsteak tomatoes.

Once in a while you should stir it up—I used a hoe, but only after it was half way full. It can dry out in the summer, but again, adding fish tank water, or creek water, or rain water, or tap water will fix that problem.

Depending on the weather, it will take four to eight weeks to break down standard kitchen, lawn and garden waste. You know how much waste you produce. I found that once I filled the composting can (it actually kept composting down) about three or four times, I just left it, stirred it once or twice a month, then worked it in after I cleaned the bed up in the fall (my family of four actually needs three units for the year).

Handy Uses

This unit can be used in the winter, not for composting, but for compost storage. Basically you have your three or four units put somewhere not too close to the kitchen, but where you can access them all winter. Then you or one of your helpers dumps the household compostable matter daily. (For this, I bought a square wastebasket that just fits the paper bags from grocery stores. They are completely biodegradable. Just fill and dump, but be careful of wet stuffàif wet, roll the top and flip the contents to the dry top and send out to the compost cans.)

In the spring, once the contents have thawed enough (don’t bang the plastic cans – they’ll break), slide out the contents. Once you’ve set up your beds and composting areas, you can just shovel the now thawed contents back into the composting cans or just add to your compost pile. Because it has frozen, the waste breaks down very fast, because of that it needs lot of air—If your putting back into the cans, you must stir it! But it is worth it.

If it starts to smell and you realize that it’s gotten kind of slimy, just add dry organic matter and stir. This doesn’t mean you need to have a bale of straw on hand, though that would work fine, just add extra (untreated) wood chips, grass clippings, or the old standby, shredded newspaper (this stuff should be going in there anyway.)

If you get night time visitors, it’s important that the composter is on solid footing, or else it can and will fall over onto your tomatoes. (Mine didn’t seem to suffer, but they had turned into small trees.) I used four cinder blocks, worked fine. My friend has used four bricks, and even though she had to dig them out in the fall, she felt they worked just fine.

Do Not Add the Following (Unless You Know What You’re Doing, And Don’t Live in the Suburbs!)

Never add shiny magazine type paper, computer paper (it’s treated and can be toxic), or meat. Yes you can compost meat and cat and dog waste, but you need a large area, and a managed compost pile a minimum of eight feet square by six feet high, it must be turned regularly and allowed to heat up enough to kill any pathogens (it’ll get so hot that if it dries too much it will burst into flames.)

If you have the room, go for it. There are a lot of resources out there.

As for the garbage can composter, it makes a great project for kids to make and give to family and friends.

Remember to have fun and enjoy your green spaces.

T. Masters-Heinrichs lives in the country with her husband, two children, two cats in constant need of affection, one neurotic Border Collie, a geriatric gecko and one large rabbit that seems to be getting bigger.