Whether you’re starting a backyard garden and don’t want to spend a fortune on fertilizer or are simply hoping to cut down on waste (like grandma would have), there are plenty of reasons to start composting your kitchen scraps.
Food waste is terrible for landfills, nitrogen-rich soil is great for plants (like our lawns, flower beds, and food gardens are made out of) and it’s just plain sensible! In fact, many cities and municipalities are even starting to collect food waste separately from other trash, so they can compost it.
If you’re going to collect your kitchen scraps—whether it’s for your own backyard compost pile, for a local community garden, or because your city, county, or town is starting to collect it separately—you’ll want some place to collect it.
That means finding a place to put bits of food where they don’t make a mess, and won’t smell. You could, of course, put everything in a gallon-sized plastic bag. But that way tends to be messy, so usually a small dedicated container is the way to go. Any lidded plastic container will do, though you want it to be big enough to hold a day’s scraps (and not so big that it sits around for a week — phew!).