Earlier this year, the municipality where I live introduced a green bin program. Through the program, we can collect yard and kitchen waste to be composted, including items like shrimp shells, bones, half-eaten grilled cheese sandwiches and moldy pizza. I really appreciate the service because, while I compost, there are certain things that I can’t put out in my back yard, lest I attract scavengers. This is particularly important because in my neighbourhood, scavengers can include bears.
We bought a bin, affixed the sticker to it, and started collecting our kitchen scraps. It went well, for the most part. But as summer has worn on, it’s gotten grosser. And grosser. And grosser. Plus, the bin has gotten gunkier with each passing week, because there are nearly always chunks of yucky, half-decomposed food left stuck on the bottom, and I’m not really sure what I would even do with them if I washed them out. I don’t want to leave them in my yard to attract the dreaded scavengers. I don’t want to put them back in the green bin. And I feel guilty throwing them out.
Photo credit: DerekL on Flickr
It’s a conundrum. And I haven’t even mentioned the creepy-crawlies.
I am discovering that I have a love-hate relationship with the green bin. I’ve read a number of suggestions for how to avoid the problem, but they all sound like a lot of work. Like carefully wrapping all of my scraps in newspaper and tying them up with compostable twine. Or freezing them until collection day. Not only is that an extra step, but I barely have enough room in my freezer for actual food. I’m not about to pack it full of half-eaten scraps. When I’m cleaning up the dinner dishes, I want to be able to dispose of uneaten food easily, I don’t want a bunch of extra steps. So I just throw all the food in as-is, and my green bin smells bad.
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I’m going to keep using my green bin – I think it’s a very important part of reducing the amount of waste that our family sends to the landfill. But I think I’m probably going to hate the bin a little bit every time I have to open the lid. It’s icky, sticky and it smells bad. I hope the planet appreciates the gross-ness I’m putting up with on its behalf.
Do you have a green bin? Is it gross? If not, how do you keep it clean? Bonus points if your answer doesn’t involve a lot of extra work for me!
We have those too, and I find there are a whole lot of coffee grounds stuck to the bottom. A friend told me to get out the hose, and dump the liquid sludge into my actual compost. Then, lid off, let it dry, and then put a piece of newspaper on the bottom. I also try and leave it open if I can when it’s hot… Drier compost always smells less.
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We’ve had the green bin program for awhile. I’ve found it helpful to use the compostable garbage bags that are made for green bins. They contain the compost soup so that it doesn’t end up in the bottom of my big bin. Not having to scrub half-composted sludge totally justifies the cost to me. Paper bags also work, but not as well – liquid starts oozing out after a day or two.
Also, if smell is an issue, I’ve been known to keep my kitchen scraps in the freezer and then just toss the big frozen glob into the green bin on pickup day.
Lining the bottom of the big bin with weeds or dried leaves also helps – I prefer this to newspaper because if the paper gets wet from the compost juice, it often just sticks to the bottom.
We’ve also noticed that the new green bins in our neighbourhood have holes in them, and we’re planning to drill some into the top of ours so that the bin gets fresh air.
Good luck!
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Any kind of basic starch is also compostable (and actually an important addition for healthy compost anyhow), so along the newspaper lines, you could put your messiest food scraps in plain paper bags before tossing them in the green bin. The bags might get a bit soggy, but assuming you get weekly pickup, should make a pretty good barrier between the gross things and the bin. Or go the newspaper route with the free weeklies, and forego the twine. Just roll/fold/scrunch until the nasty bits are pretty well contained.
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I hate to confess, but after reading the instructions that came with our green bin (same community as you!) I haven’t put any food waste in because of the same issue – I want to be green, but the idea of wrapping it up and tying it with string was just something I couldn’t get to and my understanding was that you weren’t allowed to just throw it in. However, I have also now seen advertised bags for food waste and if I could put my scraps into those and put them out in the bin then I would. I like the idea that maybe I could have 1 in the kitchen and at the end of each day take it out to the bin. They are $10 for 10 bags on everylittlebitgreen.com (an online eco-store in our community too!), but I know I saw them advertised at a mainstream grocery store the other day and can’t think where that was! Now you’ve posted this, I’m going to get some and give it a go. One more step to greener living! Thanks for the nudge. I’ll let you know how I get on.
PS – I see now they also have 15% off until the end of Aug right now at everylittlebitgreen.com!
After a huge maggot infestation in our green bin last summer, we now avoid putting any meat products in the green bin during the summer months. Lining the bottom with newspaper or garden waste definitely helps everything slide out, and then I check it after it’s been emptied and hose it down if necessary.
If I’m doing something in the kitchen that generates a lot of scraps, like peeling a huge pile of potatoes, I’ll wrap them directly into some newspaper and take them straight out to the green bin outside. Small paper bags (Happy Meal size) also work as long as your waste isn’t too soggy. I’ve been experimenting with using the bottom half of cereal boxes inside my small kitchen waste pail and they seem to work fairly well.
They do get gross, don’t they? If I have the time, I rinse ours with the hose after the pickup weekly. Once in a while I have to use some spray cleaner with bleach in there to kill the mold and such. I haven’t found a proven way yet to *prevent* the ick.
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Just make sure your community allows the compostable bags. Not all of them do.
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Good point – we can only use the bags that are stamped with the big *biodegradable* logo all over it. Every municipality is different though.
We do old paper bags, cardboard boxes, and my favorite, cardboard milk cartons opened at the top and set the kitchen counter, etc. That way, the whole thing goes in the bin, no prob. This is an especially good idea to contain meat and bones, because blech, maggots (and yet, what could be better than composting your meat scraps in the bin? that’s one of the best things about municipal compost!).
Of course, things spill in the bin. I find that filling the bind with tree trimmings and yard waste occasionally “cleans” the muck out a bit. I like the idea of new paper on the bottom of the bin. I’ll try that.
Municipal compost REALLY reduces the amount of stuff we put in the landfill. So it’s well worth the hassle. But we had a period of “de-bugging” where we figured out what worked for us, for sure.
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Yea, ours got pretty gross last year. we even had maggots crawling out of it — YYYEEEEAAACCCHHH!!!
This year’s been better. I started using paper bags just as jen said. Whenever I shop for fruit I get paper bags instead of plastic and then save them and use them for this.
However, since much of my stuff does get soggy (especially if it has to wait for the weekly pickup) I also put the paper bag in a compostable ‘plastic’ bag (small ones are better than medium or larger ones). It makes for more bags, but since it’s going to a compost I don’t feel bad about it. It’s severely reduced the ickiness factor of our bin.
That, and, I leave the lid open (when empty) so that if it rains the bin gets cleaned out. Sorry, but I don’t dare clean it out myself. I don’t really like touching it at all (lol)
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ooh, I forgot to ask, does your program allow for used kleenex and paper napkins? I add them at the bottom of my compost bags. Also helps with ickiness.
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The city of Ottawa introduced the green bin project last year and I LOVE it but yes, um nasty maggots have been known to appear. To stop all the gunk from building up in the bottom I just throw a section of the newspaper down there first and then it goes out with the rest of it every week. Also, if you have any fibrous yard waste you could leave a layer of that since that stuff takes forever to break down in the backyard composts. To battle the nasty’s I just spray the lid and sides with my kitchen vinegar and water spray bottle every week and I’ve only had maggots once this summer. Good luck!
There service that existed to come and clean green bins closed – I am very sad because I totally would have been up for paying for it a couple of times of year.
Green bins are gross and I still haven’t figured out how to combat that – but we didn’t get maggots this summer like we did last so at least that was an improvement though I’m not sure that was any more than luck and/or weather.
ugh.
Luckily, I was pre-warned by a neighbour about the smell issue re: green bins. I addressed my misgivings about the whole system here and mused on how it always seems to be women’s work to figure out how to be more eco. The comments here are confirming my conclusion – how many of the menfolk involved in producing said waste are figuring out good solutions to the ick and smell factor?
We’ve had our green bin for over half a year now. I’m amazed at how little waste we do produce (somehow) but I also admit to using the garburator in extremis. Food waste goes into a washable tupperware container (fits in the dishwasher) until collection day and is then tipped into a paper grocery sack on the morning of, with a newspaper or two underneath to collect the leaks. I haven’t been home for the summer so cannot comment on smells, but the tupperware is small enough to fit into the freezer.
I still cannot reconcile completely the extra use of household chemicals and water to keep the bins sanitary in the name of composting – our bin sits in our garage right smack dab in the middle of active bear territory. A flimsy garage door is not going to be a great deterrant to a hungry, aroused bear methinks. At any rate, the smell of a whole townhome complex reeking of rotting food will be a great attractant to our resident furries.
Not a well thought out plan IMO
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We got our green bins last year and it was so gross I wasn’t sure I’d survive. I mean THOUSANDS of maggots freaked even me out. This year, I’m not being super crazy about my compost but I do three things that have made a huge difference – 1 I always put my scraps in a bag, I don’t care if it’s the newspaper origami trick or the greenbin bags with the liner (man those work and are so worth .30 per bag!) and 2 – ALWAYS lift the bag into the green bin. Last year I was dumping so the liner was only keeping my counter top bin clean. This year, I place the bag in and don’t spill the contents. And finally – lock it. I think there were times when I closed the lid but didn’t catch the latch so flies could still get in. This year, it’s a vault.
Clean, not so smelly and NO BUGS.
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Our green bin is disgusting right now. I opened it this evening and found maggots. So on Wednesday (garbage day) we will pressure wash it and put all the crap that comes out of it right back into the big. But from now on I am going to lay down some newspaper (onto the bottom) prior to starting to fill it up. The paper will get wet over the week and when they go to empty it it will slide right out.
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We don’t have the green bin yet, but we do have our own compost out back. Of course, we can’t compost everything, but the bin out back still stinks terribly in the summer when you open the lid. This is why my husband’s role is to be the dumper of the compost. It’s too sick for me. Delta is moving to a 2 week garbage pick up soon and will be implementing the green bins. I’m quite happy to see this change. Reduced garbage pick up should encourage everyone to embrace the stinky green bin.
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Hello All Green Bin Lovers,
I’m doing some market research on those that would be interested in monthly green bin cleaning. Pricing would be approximately $14 per month or a better deal is you sign up for year. The cleaning system would be self container washing trailer with recirculating water system.
Trying to get a feel for how many would use this service to battle their green bins.
thanks,
Colin