Home > How to Build and Fill an Indoor Compost Bin for your Kitchen

How to Build and Fill an Indoor Compost Bin for your Kitchen

Materials for Building an Indoor Composting Bin - (left to right) black rubber mat, organic potting mix, organic composted manure, old furniture legs, 10 gallon metal garbage can, newspapers and food scraps.

The tools and materials to build an indoor compost bin:

    Tools

  • Drill with 1/4″ bit
    Materials

  • 10 gallon metal garbage can
  • Black and white newspaper
  • Rubber mat
  • Organic potting mix
  • Composted organic manure
  • Old furniture legs
  • Food scraps
    Building the bin went down like this

  • Drilled holes in the bottom of the garbage can. Supposedly this allows for aeration and to help the compost do it’s thing.
  • Shredded the newspapers by hand.
  • Set up mat and rested garbage can on the furniture legs.
  • Put in first layer of newspapers and some of the potting mix.
  • Added a layer of the food scraps (Totally forgot to take a picture of this part).
  • Sprinkled some of the composted manure.
  • Covered with layer of newspaper and potting mix.
  • Food layer. Then another layer of newspaper and soil.
  • Closed up and done.

Building an Indoor Composting Bin - I ripped up the newspaper by hand. Also had to make sure that I removed any of the pages that used color ink. About 30-40 newspapers were shredded.Building an Indoor Composting Bin - Put the rubber mat down, set up the furniture legs, placed the garbage can on the legs and added the first layer of newspaper. The mat will catch anything if there are leaks and the legs allow for air circulation.Building an Indoor Composting Bin - Once the bin is set up I added my first layer of newspaper. This was then topped with food scraps, composted manure, another layer of newspaper and potting mix. Forgot to take pics of that part though.Building an Indoor Composting Bin - The Finished Built Indoor Composting BinBuilding an Indoor Composting Bin - Here is a full shot of my kitchen. Told you it wasn't huge, but plenty of room for the indoor composting bin.

Home > How to Build and Fill an Indoor Compost Bin for your Kitchen
  • Very useful guide, thanks for sharing that. I am thinking of making my own indoor composting bin, so I might use your guide for it. Right now I have a Bokashi bin, but one is not enough and I think it is a little bit cheaper to make one yourself.

    I'll think about it, but thanks a lot for providing this information!

    Cheers,
    Roel
  • Mike Lieberman
    Nice. You might also want to give this a shot as well. Can do cheaper and scale to your needs.

    http://www.urbanorganicgardener.com/2010/02/kit...

    Lemme know how it turns out.
  • Cindy
    On the webpage "How to Build and Fill an Indoor Compost Bin for your Kitchen," I clicked on "Indoor composting tips and advice," and got an error msg. that page could not be found.
  • Mike Lieberman
    Thanks for the heads up Cindy. Sorry that page doesn't exist. It's been removed from the page. Thanks again.
  • Victoria
    Hey Mike, your garden looks great. The soda bottles look like a pretty cool idea. Have you set up an indoor garden for the winter? That is what I'm interested in doing. Haven't figured out what type of container to use yet though and how to create enough light in my apartment. How is your compost working out?
  • Mike Lieberman
    Thanks Victoria. I do not have an indoor garden set up. The fire escape is out of my roommates window, which is the only room that gets any sunlight. The window in my room gets absolutely no sunlight. I could look into rigging something together and using painted cardboard or covered w aluminum foil to reflect the light somehow.

    The compost is working out well. It's a 10 gallon garbage can, which is pretty much filled at this point with new soil that's ready to go.
  • BowersGauthierLarose
    If you add red worms to your indoor compost bin, it will turn into viable soil much much faster, we did it, and continue too

    http://zerogarbabe.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_arch...

    cheers, keep up the good work!
  • Mike Lieberman
    Thanks. I've been thinking about going the worm route, but have been hesitant.
blog comments powered by Disqus
SEO Powered by Platinum SEO from Techblissonline