5 Indoor Compost Bins For A Low Waste Household

If everyone composted instead of sending food waste to landfills, we would reduce and sequester up to 3.13 gigatons of greenhouse gasses by 2050. If we think of CO₂ emissions as elephants, that’s equivalent to roughly 600 million elephants!

You don’t need 5.5 acres or an intricate outdoor composting setup to get in on the composting game, either. Just study up on what is compostable and what isn’t compostable at home and then look through the following options to see what sort of home composting setup best suits your needs.

If you’re not sure which type of composter you need, we have a brief explainer at the bottom of this article.

Price range: $599 (or $399 with a monthly $20 membership)

Lomi is an electronic indoor composter that effectively converts food waste into natural fertilizer.

The process is simple: fill the device with food scraps, let the machine do it’s thing (heats and grinds) and bam you have dirt for your own garden, your pots or your local community garden.

Created by Pela (the sustainable sustainable phone case brand), Lomi includes an app based experience and has a dishwasher-safe bucket for easy cleaning.

As anyone who has tried composting indoors knows, if you get it wrong, it can smell bad! So the big win with a device like this (aside from massively being able to reduce your household waste) is odor control.

The brand boasts 4.74/5 star reviews (at the time of writing) and 200K+ sales to date.

Price Range: $49

simplehuman provides an easy way to collect scraps before they go to a bin that actually breaks them down.

The best thing about this compost caddy is that, if you have a Simple Human trash can, it can be conveniently docked on the side. It can also be placed on the countertop, and has a magnetic docking system that can hold the lid open for convenient cutting, scraping, and peeling.

This is the ideal type of bin if you have access to commercial composting services or an outdoor compost bin. Just use this to easily collect your scraps as you cook, then empty it it into the curbside green bin or outdoor bin as needed.

Price Range: $600

Vitamix may be known for their professional-quality blenders, but their FoodCycler FC-50 is just as essential for any foodie.

It’s an electric compost bin that reduces food waste to a fraction (around one-tenth) of its original size in the span of 7-8 hours. Mix the remnant food scraps directly into the soil or add them to another compost bin to fully become humus (in a much shorter period of time!).

It’s one of the few compact food recycling systems that can process fruit, veggies, dairy, and bones—and do so in an efficient, quiet, and odorless way.

Price Range: $35–$50

Bamboozle’s compost collection bin (or caddy) is ideal for storing and gathering food scraps in your kitchen before they go to compost. Perhaps the better term would be pre-composting bin).

It has a sleek modern design, and, being made with biodegradable bamboo fibers, can be composted itself. Just not in a home bin like this. It’s dishwasher safe, freezer-safe, and comes with a breathable lid and odor-blocking carbon filter.

Price Range: $199

The odorless biomorphic indoor worm compost bin from Biovessel is uniquely shaped based on an algorithm, which explains why it can process up to two pounds of food a week.

With separate compartments for adding food scraps, worms, and removing soil, it makes it easy to use the finished compost (and the nutrient-rich worm castings it contains).

Plus, it’s made from sustainable materials like cork and recycled plastic.

If you need a guide on what to buy, this should help you figure out the best option for your indoor composting needs:

First, ask yourself:

1. Do you have a food waste collection service? If yes and if you don’t need the dirt output for your garden, then a simple caddy is the way to go.
2. How much space do you have? Take a look at your living space and determine where you might put one. On the counter? Beneath the sink? In a closet?
3. How much work do you want to put in? If you live a busy life and don’t have time to compost or plan on doing a lot of composting, a more expensive electronic vessel is worth the investment. Plus, if you eat a lot of meat and dairy, you’ll likely need a more complete system that is as air-tight as possible.

Types Of Indoor Compost Bins

Simple Indoor Compost Collection Bins or Caddies

To clarify, not all “compost bins” on this list or anywhere actually compost. These just collect food waste and often have some sort of filter to minimize odors. These are designed to be used before one of the other types of compost bins or to collect food scraps in between weekly curbside composting pickups.

Indoor Worm Compost Bins

These use worms (typically red wrigglers) to break down food scraps into worm castings (AKA poop) that can be steeped into a concentrated liquid fertilizer and fed to your plants. This is called worm tea. Worms eat almost anything; they just need a little extra care (they’re living beings after all). The biggest benefit to these is they can be kept inside without smelling or attracting bugs.

Bokashi Style Indoor Composting Bins

The word “Bokashi” is Japanese for “shading off” derived from methods used centuries ago to ferment food. The method typically involves throwing food scraps into a bin, along with a mix of microorganisms (purchased separately).

The Bokashi method doesn’t entirely convert your food scraps into rich compost, but turns them into another form of waste that can go straight into the garden or into a worm farm/traditional composter for further breakdown.

We currently don’t have any of these on our list as they haven’t stood the test of time for us.

Electric Indoor Composting Bins

These are newer types of compost bins and are increasingly popular for obvious reasons. They eliminate odor and speed up the process of composting, making them better suited to indoor composting than bokashi or worm bins.

They typically use a combination of heat and grinding and the output is rich fertilizing dirt that can be added to any garden.

We hope we’ve been able to help in your search for the perfect indoor composter. Just by choosing to compost your organic waste, you’re choosing to reduce your own landfill waste by up to 50%. So go forth you good thing!

For a super-friendly way to handle your food waste, consider making a DIY indoor compost bin or DIY indoor worm compost bin. How to make an indoor compost bin? The process is pretty simple:

• For a small, countertop version made with just a plastic lid and nylon mesh screen, check out the instructions from Better Homes and Gardens.

• For something a little larger (suitable for a basement, perhaps), Young House Love has tips for a budget indoor compost bin that makes use of a large storage bin container.

• Using the same type of containers, you can make a DIY worm farm. Make sure you have two plastic bins with lids and be sure that they’re opaque (worms don’t like a lot of light). Check out Modern Farmer for specific instructions.

Epic Gardening has an excellent video on how to build a stackable DIY worm farm. Spoiler alert: it’ll only cost $30!

We hope we’ve been able to help in your search for the perfect kitchen composting bin.

Just by choosing to compost your organic waste, you’re choosing to reduce your own landfill waste by up to 50%. That’s about 0.42 pounds per person in your house per DAY.

Make that nearly pound of waste diverted from landfills even bigger by sharing this article with a friend or family member! If we all feel compelled to compost, we can truly stop breaking down our planet.