Home Composting: First Results and Initial Thoughts
Introduction
This post captures my lessons from an initial dabbling with
composting. I go over my intentions and assess whether the reality is worth doing. Overall I find it worthwhile to compost existing household waste
streams, but questions have been raised about if it is worth making all of the compost I use.
My Composting Goals
Before, I was buying bags of compost and layering kitchen
scraps and garden waste on top. Besides the cost, I felt that my scraps and
garden waste weren't being used as best as possible, that I was basically dumping
it.
Using all my kitchen and garden waste as compost seems more
purposeful. The purpose of this experiment is to understand what that would
involve, and the likely benefits.
My approach was to just get started for free and see how things
worked out. I built the first compost bin from a set of mismatched shipping
pallets, and sourced all green and brown matter for free.
My Experience So Far
My experiment has been running for about 8 weeks with two
distinct phases.
Initially, I went with cold composting—filling a single DIY
bin with grass clippings, shredded cardboard, brown leaves, and kitchen scraps.
I built this up progressively, adding lawn clippings, kitchen scraps etc each
week. Originally, I expected the compost to take several months to be ready.
After about 6 weeks, I came across information about
producing a load of compost within 6 weeks (best case, all things going right).
That discovery prompted a shift into hot composting. By that point, the pile
had already shrunk by about 50%. I stopped adding new material and focused on
managing what was already in the bin. I added a substantial amount of wood
shavings to increase the carbon ratio, then began turning the pile regularly to
aerate it and force unprocessed material into the hotter centre. After a week,
I noticed a significant rise in temperature. By the second week of this
practice, the compost matter had started breaking down faster.
Results So Far
Method
My prototype bin was built just by slapping some random pallets together in a u-shape. To stop the pile spilling out the front, I improvised some slats across the front.
This is working well enough. The cold composting method (‘dump and forget’) was easy but substantially slower, and suited to situations where no impending deadline and/or you don’t have the time to turn etc. The hot composting method can be faster at the cost of more labour, technique and commitment.
Quality
At 8 weeks, the compost is trending in the right direction, becoming
finer and more uniform. That said, the final result is still to be proven.
Volume Produced
The pile has settled at 95 cm × 40 cm × 57 cm, or roughly 216
litres in volume. That’s equivalent to about five 40-litre bags of retail compost.
However, I believe my compost may process down to two or three bags’ worth, if
I understand the process – we shall see.
Likely Benefits
Turning food waste etc into a ‘value add’ is satisfying,
as expected. What was unexpected was the fun I have doing the weekly turning –
don’t ask me to explain it, I can’t.
Potential savings from the current batch will be minimal, due to the low retail price of compost (e.g. $6.71 per 40-litre bag from Mitre
10, 3 August 2025.) Possible savings has two aspects
- - Is it worth using up my waste productively? Yes, because it’s easy enough.
- - Is it worth trying to produce all my compost? Unsure – can I get enough raw materials freely? How much time is involved? Can I just buy it from a landscape supplier at a discounted price?
Conclusion
As a skill, composting is highly accessible and I now have all the basic tools/infrastructure required. I'm going to keep it up. The extra work involved to accelerate production is worth it in my opinion.
Composting kitchen and garden waste was easy, feasible and satisfying. The likely savings on bought compost will always be minor due to the combination of low volumes and low retail price. More study is needed about whether to make all the compost I use.
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