DIY Kitchen Scrap Compost Pail

We have had an outdoor compost pile for about 3 years, and we always make an effort to add our kitchen scraps into it, especially in the warmer months. Why let all the organic goodness go to waste? The same wonderful nutrients can be used to feed new gardens beds! Unfortunately, it was always a chore to collect the kitchen scraps because we never had a good container to hold the goodies.We tried old quart sized yogurt containers, but they were too small. Our goal is to empty the container once per week. The yogurt containers filled up way too fast. We looked into buying a kitchen compost bin, but many of them were upwards of $30 to $50! Really? Just for a bucket?

As luck would have it, we happen to frequent our local farmer's market where we get our granola in bulk from a local company. And the granola comes in a nice handy plastic bucket! As we finished munching the yummy granola, we re-purposed the bin for a perhaps a higher purpose.

We drilled some holes on the lid to allow for air circulation. You can see a cocentric ring of holes in the picture on the upper left.

Then we bought a pack of charcoal filters from the pet store. These are normally used to neutralize odors from litter boxes. The filters were a bit large, so we just simply cut them in half, and save the rest for later. You will have to change the charcoal filter every few months. Just taped it with some masking tape to the inside of the lid, and there you have it!

We now have a low cost compost pail that's sturdy and roomy. It even has a handle that makes the weekly dump out a bit more manageable. Have you made your own kitchen compost bin? We'd love to hear about how you did it!