On collecting food scraps for your compost

Or: how I stopped worrying and learned to love the open bowl

Q: “What do you use to collect food scraps in your kitchen?”

A: Nobody likes my answer to this question. Nobody believes my answer to this question. In fact, the pushback I’ve gotten on my answer to this question has been so severe and so, honestly, distracting at times, that I’ve ceased to speak about it all together. But the time has come to be honest.

Controversially, I collect food scraps for my compost in an open-mouthed mixing bowl that remains uncovered on my counter. The reasons people have an issue with this are numerous. They think it smells, they assume exposure attracts bugs, they think it’s gross to look at, and more. I do understand why people would have all these assumptions, but I want to make the case for why the open bowl works for me—and might work for you, too.

One, I mostly cook and I mostly eat vegetables. My food scraps tend to be a harmless accumulation of onion skins and chard stems, zucchini bits and coffee grounds**. Sometimes, thanks to my boyfriend, a bunch of flowers will end up in there. I rarely have leftovers that include cooked food. My compost pile is easy to access and I enjoy going out to it, so the bowl gets emptied often. The bowl, once emptied, is easy to rinse and so it stays relatively clean. Lastly, and perhaps more significantly, the bowl fits snugly into my kitchen routine. When I’m preparing vegetables for dinner, I just slide it over to my cooking space and pop in food scraps as I make them, then put it back anywhere else that occurs to me or makes sense. My counter top, kitchen table, butcher block, or kitchen sink have all served as “home” for the bowl. It’s an effortless addition to my existing habits.

One more admission, though, and it’s this:

I actually like looking at my food scraps. The bowl, as it fills slowly, becomes a pleasing snapshot of care. This is the food that I’ve cooked for myself and my friends. That bit of potato was from my garden and I roasted it with chicken. Those three or four teabags or from when I had the girls over for dinner. The stems from those herbs went with eggs that I made for breakfast, and they made everything taste so delicious. Any time that things in the bowl look particularly various (garlic skins, carrot fronds, bread crusts), I feel a little squirm of joy. I ate well this week! I fed people I love. Things can be simple and even good. The open bowl reminds me.

There’s a lesson here, of course.

People often approach me asking for the “right product” to buy for their compost, when the solution is almost always to find the right process. The open bowl works for me because it suits my sensibilities and my routine accommodates its best use. If you think you recognize yourself in the story above, it might also work for you. However, I do know that it’s not for everyone. Luckily, there are lots of other options. Since no one solution will work for everyone, the first thing to consider is—as ever—yourself. How much food waste you generate each week, how much money you want to spend, how willing you are to go out of your way, and how much you mind looking at food scraps are all factors.

• If you don’t want to add extra steps to your routine, you could try replacing your regular garbage can with a double-bin system that let’s you dispose of food scraps and traditional waste, all in one place.

• If you have a big family and don’t want to spend a lot of money, a simple 5-gallon bucket might do the trick. I recommend using these with a box of alfalfa at the side. Add handfuls each time you add food scraps, and it’ll manage your odors well.

• If you live in an apartment and have to store your food scraps for occasional drop off, you could try reusable silicone bags that you can seal and store in your freezer. (Note: I don’t recommend “compostable” plastic bags for these situations, as most community composters won’t take them.)

• If you do want a closed bin, the TerraCycle one is made from upcycled plastic and is dishwasher safe.

• If you drink mostly coffee at home and rarely prepare meals, you probably don’t have to worry about that much food waste and basically anything will work for you. Just find any container. I’m including this option because, from what I can gather, this is true of a surprising number of you.

Truthfully, you don’t have to pay a cent on a food scrap container if you don’t want to. There are plenty of empty vessels drifting around the universe of any given persons home that would suffice to carry future compost. Old tote bags have worked for people, as have large jars and tupperware, repurposed takeout containers, and paper bags from the grocery store. Anything that the food fits in will work. Often, the biggest obstacle is just accepting that it’s okay to improvise, and understanding that finding a way to enjoy a new habit is the best way to make sure that it sticks. A friend of mine recently sent me the picture below, captioned: “Would it kill me to have one normal sized compost as opposed to a million small vessels in my fridge?” (No, but never change, Caitlin.)

My own open bowl.

If you are unsure what food scrap collection strategy might work best for you, feel free to reply to this email and tell me your story. Let’s come up with something together!

Love,

Cass

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**When I say “coffee grounds,” I actually mean a truly insane amount of coffee grounds.

I’m probably throwing one or two filters of coffee grounds into the bowl a day and so about eight of them are in there at any given time. Thinking about it now, it does seem like there could be a correlation between the lack of insects and my own most prevalent food scrap.

So I Googled it:

Go figure.

I’m amused by this more than I think it’s the singular explanation for my success with an open bowl, of course. Truthfully, all the factors I cited initially—exposure to light and air, the frequency of taking the scraps out, the ease of keeping the bowl clean —are likely responsible, when engaged in combination. However, if you are also a titanic drinker of coffee, I suspect that you would have similar luck utilizing the open bowl strategy.