For those who live in towns or cities and don’t have much of a yard, it might seem like composting is out of the question. But Emily Fields, an elementary music teacher in Western Pennsylvania and a native to Bethlehem, recently discovered through a bit of online research that composting is in fact quite doable in her quaint backyard outside of where she rents an apartment in Kittanning, Armstrong County.
Saying Yes to Composting Despite What Space Says
Realizing the inherent good in giving a banana peel back to the earth instead of tossing it into a trash bag to eventually end up in a landfill, Fields wanted to compost but initially figured a bin wouldn’t be practical for where she rents.
“I thought you needed a fancy, expensive composting bin or a big open space where you could pile things,” Fields said. “I pictured it as impossible, but it’s definitely not.”
A Simple Online Search
Fields hadn’t considered something as simple as constructing her own compost container, built to cater to her limited yard space, until a friend suggested she search the web for do-it-yourself approaches.
Her interest struck a chord when she stumbled onto www.instructables.com, which she said offered a few different design models. Instead of following the instructions for just one, she adapted a few together in making her eventual container.
Cost & Options
Aside from her labor, which she estimated totaled a little more than an hour, Fields only dished out $25 for her materials.
“A lot of people made the bins out of garbage cans, but my issue with that was that the lid might fall off,” Fields said. “Some bungee-corded the lids.” Still, she wanted something more secure and less problematic.
Her research suggested using a food-grade drum. Once she began perusing posts on Craigslist, she glimpsed one from a man in Pittsburgh who had a number of barrels for sale which formerly held bulk olives from Greece, for $20 apiece. She drove to the city to buy one, shoving it into the backseat of her compact car for the hour-long drive home.
Emily Fields sourced a used food drum formerly full of olives from Greece to build her composting barrel.
The barrel comes with a twist-on top, eliminating the concern of a lid falling off during the playful and necessary act of kicking it around the yard, after completion, once compostable materials are tucked inside.
Finding a barrel with a twist-on lid solved the concern of using something like a trash can with the possibility of the lid falling off during kicking endeavors to stir oxygenation.
Building It
Once she had the sturdily thick plastic barrel at her apartment, she drilled 24 holes throughout it, each about an inch in diameter.
“When I moved into this place, there was a screen in the attic that wasn’t in a window,” Fields said. “I cut it apart and put it on the inside of the barrel to go over the holes.” While instructions didn’t note this as necessary, Fields elected to do it to keep the food from falling out of the barrel during kicking games around her yard, with three-by-three inch pieces of screen spanning across the drilled holes.
When Gorilla Glue didn’t work out very well, she instead used Gorilla Tape to attach the cut sections of screen to the insides of the barrel. The tape cost of $5 explains the remaining expense in her $25 endeavor to build her own composting barrel.
Finishing the barrel just a few weeks ago, Fields tossed in pumpkins and leaves she’d raked up in her yard. By the next morning, she removed the top to see the leaf-supply steaming.
Leaves and pumpkin parts were the first to join inside this homemade composting barrel.
Fun Kicks
Wanting to compost for a while now, she had saved old eggshells in a reusable container in her freezer, along with old green beans, so she’ll be adding those to the barrel soon, too.
The fun part now for Fields will be her time spent kicking the barrel around her yard once a week to help shake up the materials and assure that oxygen is getting into the mix so that it will be readily usable compost for her flowerbeds in a few months.
New Lessons Learned
Her time spent researching about how to do composting on her own smaller scale also taught her a few tidbits about materials she hadn’t thought of as compostable before, like hair.
“It makes sense that it is, but I never thought about it before,” Fields said. “Fingernail clippings are compostable too, and so is basically everything you vacuum up from your carpet.”
The Good Behind the Kicking
Fields explained that her primary reason for composting is to do well by the earth, but she also enjoys when people see the barrel, making strange faces in response in wondering what it is so that she has a chance to tell them about her efforts. And she’s learned to appreciate the zeal in the act of using a power drill now, too.
With a small stretch of yard in town, this homemade composting barrel shows that similar ones are possible fits for even smaller spaces.
“I already don’t throw very much away, but I won’t have to buy soil at a garden center next year,” Fields said, enthusiastic to have her own supply ready next year for when she plants her annuals, with her food waste now finding a sustainable use instead of making friends with a landfill.
