What's actually going on in the bin
Everything on this page shows up in the deck. Read it before you play or after you miss a card · either works.
Compost is not just rotting · same peel, two fates
Garbage in a landfill and compost in a bin both break down, but they're not the same process. Picture one banana peel with two possible endings:
- Peel goes in loose, mixed with dry browns.
- Oxygen flows · tiny microbes get to breathe while they eat.
- Breaks down into rich, dark soil · no nasty gas, just food for plants.
- Peel gets sealed in a plastic bag, buried under tons of trash.
- No oxygen at all · different microbes take over, the smelly kind.
- Rotting without air releases methane and the peel never becomes anything useful.
Methane is an invisible gas that forms when food rots without air · like when a banana peel gets buried under a pile of trash inside a plastic bag.
Think of it like a heavy blanket
Methane wraps around the planet and traps heat. Pound for pound it's way better at trapping heat than the carbon dioxide that comes out of car exhaust. Landfills make a huge share of it, and most of that comes from food scraps that could have been composted instead.
Same banana peel, completely different outcome · decided entirely by which bin it lands in. That's the whole game.
Browns and greens · the one ratio to know
Greens are the wet, nitrogen-rich stuff: food scraps, coffee grounds, fresh trimmings. Browns are the dry, carbon-rich stuff: shredded paper, cardboard, dry leaves, sawdust.
Aim for roughly 2 to 3 parts browns for every 1 part greens. Almost every problem people have with a bin traces back to this number being off · usually far too many greens and no browns at all.
If your bin smells
A smelly bin isn't a sign you're composting wrong in general · it's a sign the mix is too wet and starved of air. The fix is counterintuitive: add more, not less.
- Add a good handful of browns · shredded paper, cardboard, dry leaves.
- Stir or turn it so oxygen gets in.
- Keep a lid on it and empty a countertop bin every few days in summer.
- Don't shrink your food scraps. Bin size barely matters; the mix does.
Why one plastic bag ruins a batch
Compost facilities process food scraps at volume and often can't afford to hand-sort every bag that arrives. A single plastic bag mixed into a load can contaminate the whole batch and send it to landfill instead.
So empty your scraps loose into the bin and throw the bag in the trash. The same goes for "compostable" plastic utensils and cups · most need industrial conditions that a home or small-scale bin will never reach.
What goes in
- Fruit and vegetable scraps, peels and cores
- Coffee grounds and paper filters
- Tea leaves and paper tea bags
- Eggshells
- Rice, pasta, bread and other plain grains
- Cut flowers, houseplant trimmings, leaves
- Plain paper towels and napkins (no cleaning chemicals)
- Plastic bags of any kind · including the one you carried the scraps in
- "Compostable" plastic cups, utensils and bioplastic
- Foil, glass, metal and packaging
- Pet waste and cat litter
- Diapers, wipes and hygiene products
- Cooking oil and heavy grease
Meat, bones and dairy are accepted by the city pickup program but are usually a no for a small home bin · they attract pests and break down badly without heat. Check the rules of whichever program you're using.
How long it takes
Food scraps generally take about 2 to 6 months to become finished compost, depending on the mix, the temperature, and how often it's turned. Finished compost is dark, crumbly and smells like soil after rain · not like food.
If you're dropping scraps off rather than running your own bin, none of that timing is your problem. You just need to get the scraps to the right place. Here's where to take them in NYC.