If you have a backyard garden compost bin, you’re probably already familiar with a number of the basic items you can compost: leaves, grass clippings, dead flowers, and maybe even some food scraps from the kitchen. But did you know that there are actually a number of things you should NOT introduce into your composter? Here is the basic list of items not to compost:
- Moldy bread - The pennicillin-like fungus on moldy bread will slow down the composting process because it can kill many of the bacteria that break down the waste.
- Potato peelings - Because they contain chemical germ killers
- Fatty food scraps such as meat, gravy, cheese, butter, lard, and frying oils - Because they smell, attract vermin, and are very slow to break down.
- Ashes from charcoal briquettes
- Bones - These take a very long time to break down.
- Dog or cat poop - Because most domesticated pets are given anti-worm pills, their droppings will kill off any beneficial worms that are present in your compost.
- Skins of citrus fruits - Because these fruits are often chemically treated.
- Any weeds that you don’t want to reproduce - The seeds of many common weeds will survive the composting process, and then when you spread your compost in the garden, you’ll end up with a bumper crop of weeds.
For more information on composting, please visit our Composter FAQ page at Home Products ‘N’ More.
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