Hey ladies!
I've noticed that 60% of my trash is compostable (is that a word? lol) and I feel guilty sending it out for garbage pick up.
I have a backyard and am able to have a compost bin but i'm scared of all the extra bugs it wil bring to my backyard - the smell during the summer months and possibly the extra maintenance it requires - is it as difficult as i'm putting it out to be?
Re: convince me to start composting
All depends on the type of composter you want to use. You can use an open pile or an enclosed container. There's lots of different ways to go about it. I use an enclosed tumbler because I don't really need the compost for anything so I can keep tossing on top thus never really being able to harvest the compost unless I stop adding and let it do it's thing.
I don't have any problem with extra bugs except maybe fruit flies but they stay inside the composter unless I open the top to add more in. I don't notice any smell at all but I don't put any animal products (except egg shells) in the composter. That is what will bring the animals and a lot more bugs. I also make sure I have a good ratio of brown to green matter. So, I have absolutely no smell and I even keep ours on our deck only about 10 feet from the door.
I'd start with researching the type of composter you'd be willing to make or buy and deal with and go from there.
The bugs it brings are a good thing! We get mostly worms, centipedes and "roly-poly bugs" and our compost is going swimmingly. The only time we get flies or ants is if we put fruit in it [which we don't often since we feed our fruit waste to our chickens]. We don't do anything with it really..if it hasn't rained in a week or so I'll give it a good watering, but we don't ever turn it. We've had it for 4 years and it's working really well-no smell. We had it piled to the top with waste and it was broken down to half it's size within a month, and we did nothing to it. It can be as hands on or hands off as you wish.
ETA-we have an open air composter. It's just chicken wire tied to four stakes to form a square. We find that this works better for us. We had an enclosed composter and it wasn't doing anything.
DD2 October 2010
DS September 2012
I have an "open air compost pile". No noticeable increase in bugs or smell or effort (past maybe 5 minutes a week to dump the trash in!).
Really, why not try it? Easy peasy!
This is what we do. the only problem for us is keeping the dogs out of it if there is something they would like... but that's kind of rare.
I put chicken wire around mine and our very large dog hasn't bothered it. Worth a shot!