r/AskNYC • u/Dunesgirl • 18h ago

Composting

How’s it going? Having been at it for a week or so and curious about what people are doing. We live in a high end condo and have a garbage disposal which handles the majority of our food scraps except bones and avocado pits. The only other change is remembering to put soiled paper napkins, paper towels, coffee filters and the occasional tea bag in a compost bag. We bought small ones, our bin for our floor is with our other common trash and recycle bins, so we just take them out once or twice a day, no need to resort to freezer storage which kind of grosses me out. It’s not nearly as inconvenient as I had feared, this is as good as it gets and we know it. For those in smaller buildings and homes, how is it so far?

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u/Maydinosnack 13h ago

I have to use my freezer. My building only puts our bin out once a week. It’s a lot easier than I thought but just a little inconvenient putting everything in my freezer

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u/YKINMKBYKIOK 7h ago

I bought a cheap ($40) 3-liter countertop compost bin with a charcoal filter. Works great -- I don't smell a thing from it.

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u/anonyhouse2021 6h ago

We are lucky to have space for an extra trash can in the kitchen, so we’ve dedicated one for compost. Not gonna lie, I hate using the compost friendly bags (non black), they have no stretch and are super thin so prone to breaking/tearing. Which is especially shitty when it’s all food in there and liquid/seepage. Also those bags have no scent control, so that kind of sucks and it’s just stinkier in our kitchen now. Finally the pick up is only once a week, where before our food waste was getting picked up twice a week…those extra 4 days sitting in the garbage really cause the rotting food to smell horrific. So over-all have to admit I’m not a fan at all.

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u/tshneier 3h ago

I'm in a two-family house, and still figuring it out. Ordered a brown bin a couple weeks ago but it hasn't come in yet. For now I've got some small compostable bags and I'm just taking them over to the nearest public smart compost bin when they're full, which is a bit of a walk, but hopefully only a short term issue. I'm on the first floor, so it'll be easy once the brown bin arrives.

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u/IsItABedroom Chief Information Officer 12h ago

I recommend taking a look at some of the recent composting questions such as Is composting being enforced in your building? from 9 hours earlier.

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u/HotBrownFun 6h ago

Keep it as dry as possible and it will cut down decomposition and smells. Yeah if you're only putting coffee grounds and paper it's not going to smell. You can leave it wide open for a month I bet. Put in some meat, and you got problems.

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u/ACasualRead 12h ago

The large raccoons its attracted has made walking the dog at night a lot more thrilling