However small your living situation, you can become a composting extraordinaire! In this guide, we’re going to teach you how to compost in an apartment, either by doing the actual composting yourself or by finding other ways to turn food scraps into the good stuff.

From job opportunities to exotic food trucks, cities have a lot to offer, a fact recent urban growth trends reflect. The UN found that global city population share doubled from 25% in 1950 to about 50% in 2020 and this percentage will continue to grow.

As urban spaces fill, so do landfills which is why apartment composting is so important. Living in a small apartment doesn’t mean you can’t do your part to reduce your environmental impact.

There is nothing more satisfying than reducing what you send to landfill and composting is the single most impactful action one can take to do just that.

We started our personal composting journey while living in an apartment (or flat) in London. This was actually pretty easy because there was a council service that picked up our compost and took it to an industrial composting facility. We were pretty pleased with our apartment composting efforts!

Then came an apartment in Melbourne, Australia where there was no such collection. We had to get creative. We tried everything from Bokashi, to vermicomposting to dropping off our waste at community gardens.

Based on these experiences, we’ll share a list of ways to compost in an apartment in order of easiest to hardest and hopefully one of these methods will suit your needs.

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Contents: How To Compost In An Apartment (Easiest To Hardest)

  1. Use Your City's Compost Program Jump to section
  2. Find Others Who Want Your Waste Jump to section
  3. Try a Private Composting Program Jump to section
  4. Step By Step Guide To Composting In An Apartment Jump to section

Use Your City's Compost Program

Many local governments, municipalities and councils have now implemented organic waste collection services.

If you are time poor and this is accessible to you, this is obviously the easiest way to make sure that your food waste gets composted properly.

Some cities, such as Portland, OR and New York, NY offer “brown box programs” that pick up organic waste for composting curbside alongside regular trash and recycling. If you’re in the USA, this interactive map can help you figure out if your city offers this service.

In terms of effort required from you, this is straightforward and generally involves collecting your food waste in a compostable bag and putting it out for weekly or fortnightly collection.

Having said that, some apartment buildings manage their waste privately so they may not offer the same organic waste collection.

We had this problem in our apartment in Australia and despite writing to our building manager several times, we were never able to get organic waste collection organized for our apartment building.

We were able to temporarily solve our problem by making friends with other locals who let us put some of our organic waste in their bins on waste collection day which might be something to try but this approach can get a bit tiresome.

Find Others Who Want Your Waste

You’ve heard the saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”… Prepare to bring new meaning to the phrase!

There are tons of people out there who would love to make use of YOUR organic scraps. Maybe you have a friend who owns a farm an hour outside town; food scraps are a great way to feed livestock, even if they aren’t suitable for domestic pets.

Also check:

  • local famers markets
  • co-op gardens
  • grocery stores (Some chains offer composting collection for their customers, as well as composting their own expired food)

And of course, since this is the digital age, there are apps that can help connect you with composters.

Our favorite is ShareWaste.

It connects nearby people looking to get rid of waste with people who can use it! Think of it as a Craigslist for composting… with less scams.

Through this app, we found a local community center that accepts organic waste and turns it into compost. We’ve even had family members discover their own neighbors were looking for organic waste!

When we’ve travelled or been on vacation, we’ve used ShareWaste to avoid sending organic waste to landfill and had the joy of connecting with locals who were more than happy to take our food waste. A total win-win-win!

Freecycle is another similar website.

You can also check out Olio, a new food sharing app and website that “connects neighbors with each other and with local shops so surplus food can be shared, not thrown away”.

Try a Private Composting Program

If publicly sponsored programs aren’t available where you live, check out private composting services, like Compost Now in the US which offers affordable monthly subscriptions for domestic compost collection.

To find your nearest industrial composting facility (where you can drop off your organic waste for composting), use BioCycle’s Find a Composer.

Step By Step Guide To Composting In An Apartment

Step 1: Reduce Your Food Waste

As a key first step in any composting routine (but especially for apartment composting), first try to reduce your food waste and then find other uses for it. Here are some ideas:

The possibilities for reusing food scraps are almost endless!

This reduces the overall mass you’ll need to deal with during the composting process, and when living in small spaces, any reduction in bulk is helpful.

The more you can make into other stuff, the less you’ll need to compost, so the less space you’ll need to do it!

Step 2: Check If You’re Eligible For Any Financial Incentives To Compost

Some city councils, like our own, will provide huge discounts (up to 80%!) to private citizens on the purchase of composting vessels.

Australian residents can find your council discount super easily through Compost Revolution.

Check to see if something exists in your city…and if it doesn’t, you could always write them a letter and tell them all the greenest cities are doing it!

Step 3: Decide On Which Approach (Vessel) Would Work Best For Your Apartment:

There are several types of composting options suitable for apartment dwellers.

Check out our article on indoor compost bins for more on how to choose which vessel is best for you including a longer list of options including simple collection vessels (if you plan to use a government run program).

Here’s an overview of the best compost bin options for composting in your apartment:

Electric Composters (indoors):

Machines like Lomi and the Vitamix Food Cycler are electric composters that use a combination of heat and vibration to break down organic waste in a matter of hours.

These are designed to be fast and odorless, as well as able to break down a larger variety of scraps (e.g. meat scraps which can’t be fed to worms).

This is a good option if you have a little extra to invest in your composter and want something super efficient to compost inside your apartment.

However be aware that this is an electric device and if minimal impact is your end goal, you need to consider the energy efficiency and end of life outcome (as is the case with all electronics).

If we were to move back into an apartment, we’d be opting for one of these to make composting that much easier.

Vermicomposting:

Worms bins (or vermicomposters) the Living Composter (USA) or Urbalive (UK) rely on red wriggler worms to consume and break down organic waste, leaving behind nutrient rich castings and worm tea which gardens love!

If you have a little extra time to care for them, worms are a great, odor-free option for composting in apartments or on balconies (plus they’re like little pets for all those who live in apartments that don’t allow them!).

The obvious consideration for perhaps not including a worm farm in your apartment composting approach is that these are live beings and the process can be a little messy if you don’t have the right vessel.

Worm farms are more suited to apartments that have a balcony but it is possible to compost through a worm farm indoors using a robust bin.

If you go for a worm farm option, you need to look after them!

Some key things to remember:

  • They don’t like heat and need to stay moist so at least once a week you need to pour a big bucket of water through the bin. There will be instructions on how to do this in the pack that you buy and it’s really very simple! The worm tea liquid that you can drain out (often through an in-built tap) is wonderful for indoor and outdoor plants.
  • Feed them at least once a week but don’t overdo it – leave some space for them to move around on the surface
  • While they are not so fussy about what they eat, don’t feed them onions, citrus or a few other things – see the full list here

Like any compost bin, they all need a little maintenance – they need to be cleared regularly and monitored to ensure they do their job well!

We found composting with worms on our balcony took a little bit of habit building but became part of the routine.

Bokashi bins:

This is a Japanese method of “shading off” composting uses micro-organisms to ferment a wide array of food scraps (including things you can’t feed worms like meat, citrus, and other acidic foods).

As such, these pair well with vermicomposters, because the product it yields must be broken down further by either burying in soil or feeding to worms.

However, they’re a good option for apartment composting without worms too.

These bins are widely available worldwide and suitable for apartment composting. Here are some options:

Honestly, we found this option more challenging than the worms.

Traditional composters (outdoors):

Composters like the Envirocycle Mini rely on either decomposition (aerobic composters) or fermentation (anaerobic composters) to break down food and as such are better suited to balcony composting due to natural odors emitted in the process.

Step 5: Start Composting!

Your composting vessel should have clear instructions on how to use it but there is a learning curve to go through on what to compost. We have 3 key guides to help with this:

Step 6: Use Your Compost

The best thing about composting is the cyclical nature of it.

Use the compost you produce in your apartment to create an epic balcony garden. And if a green thumb is something you lack, give your composting yields to friends with plants, a local community garden or ask around for any takers at your local farmers market. Or sell it!

We hope this guide to apartment composting has been helpful. If so, please do share with a friend!