Step 1
Place a receptacle for dinner scraps in your kitchen. There are attractive and useful containers on the market for just this purpose. These usually look like a metal or ceramic canister. The lid is specially designed to keep the food odors contained and keep pests out.
Step 2
Identify compostable material. Not all dinner scraps can go in the compost pile. Fruits and vegetables are always fair game. Rice and bread are compostable as well, in addition to tea bags and coffee grounds. Egg shells can be composted but will take a long time to break down. Meat, fish and cheese should be kept out of the compost pile, as well as bones and other oily or greasy materials.
Step 3
Sort out the compostable materials from your dinner scraps each night and place them in your receptacle. You can continue to fill the receptacle until full, or empty it regularly once every few days.
Step 4
Add your food scraps to the compost pile. You should have an outdoor compost pile for all of your scraps. A compost pile must contain alternating layers of carbon and nitrogen-rich items. Your food scraps will make a nitrogen layer. Items such as hay, cardboard, newspaper and leaves are carbon, and should be added beneath and on top of your layers of food scraps.
