One of the reasons we compost is to reduce the amount of garbage going to landfill. To that end we compost most everything organic produced in our house. The bathroom waste paper basket gets dumped, including dental floss (which I have never seen in the finished compost, btw), dryer lint, rags, everything.
But what to do with the chicken and turkey carcasses after stock/soup making? What about the fryer oil after a feed of wings? What about the dog bombs left on my front lawn by the dog walkers? What about pork chop bones and rib bones? Crab shells? Clam shells.
Those things and more take time in a regular pile, make too much smell or are otherwise not nice to have in the pile.
You need:
- A barrel, metal or plastic
- A hole in the ground, a bit deeper and a bit larger in diameter than the barrel
- Some drain rock or rubble
- A piece of plywood and a couple of chunks of 2x4
- A handle large enough to accept your boot or a hoe
Put enough drain rock into the hole such that the top of the barrel stands a couple of inches proud of the yard.
Back fill around the barrel with drain rock, filling the last few inches with soil.
Cut the 2x4 such that they fit the inside diameter of the barrel opening
Attach them to the plywood such that it fits over the opening and secures the lid on the barrel and won't skid out from under you if you walk onto it.
Attach the handle to the opposite side of the plywood such that hooking it with your boot or a hoe/rake, whatever allows you to move the lid aside.
You are done.
Inoculate it with some regular compost, have a supply of straw or shredded browns at the ready (in case it gets honking) and just start using it.
FOG (fats, oils, grease) is just gobbled up. Big stuff like turkey carcasses simply disappear. Be prepared to weed whack around it regularly as the growth in the immediate vicinity is amazing.
We've used one for almost a decade and I have had to empty it once. The top layer was no fun in removing but the stuff underneath was like gold. Black gold, I'll grant you, but still gold.
In short, almost anything you'd like to compost but that is to big, too smelly, too much maintenance, too much whatever will go in and mostly disappear. I've had to put in extra browns to ameliorate the smell maybe a couple of times a year...and that mostly after a crab feed with a load of guests over. Or some such.
Don't get a 45 gal. barrel if its only one of you and don't use a 5 gal pickle pail if you are a family of ten, eh?
Regards, Metaxa
