What Can You Compost? (Greens, Browns and the Never List)
Get the greens-to-browns balance right and a compost heap is almost foolproof.
Composting is really just feeding microbes a balanced diet. They need greens for nitrogen and browns for carbon, roughly half and half by volume. Almost anything that once lived can go in; the short never list is mostly about smell, pests and chemicals.
Greens (nitrogen)
Wet, fresh, fast to rot: food scraps, fresh grass, green leaves, coffee grounds, manure. These feed the heap and make it heat up. Too many on their own and it goes slimy and stinks.
Browns (carbon)
Dry, woody, slow: dead leaves, cardboard, straw, paper, dry stalks. These give the heap structure and air. The single most common mistake is not enough browns, so stockpile autumn leaves and keep a box of torn cardboard by the bin.
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The never list
Meat, fish and dairy (smell and rats, use Bokashi instead), oily or saucy food, diseased plants, dog and cat droppings, glossy paper, treated timber, coal ash, and most "compostable" plastics. Everything else from the kitchen and garden belongs in the heap.
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