Unpopular opinion: spent $60 on a fancy compost bin and my trash still smells worse than before

I bought a tumbling composter from a local garden center in April, thought it would fix my kitchen waste problem, but now I just have a $60 barrel of wet leaves and rotten banana peels that attracts raccoons. Has anyone else thrown money at a 'solution' that just made things worse?

3 comments

3 Comments

kim_ramirez31mo ago

That exact model got me too, spent $80 on one from Home Depot last spring. The problem is you gotta balance the greens and browns way more than the instructions say, like think a 3 to 1 ratio of dry leaves to kitchen scraps. If it's just wet food waste you're basically making a swamp in there. Also turn it every single day for the first two weeks or it just sits and rots instead of composting. I ended up throwing a handful of shredded cardboard in mine every time I added scraps and it finally started working.

the_rowan1mo ago

My buddy followed the instructions exactly and ended up with a stinky mess in his backyard.

samflores1mo ago

Kim's right about the ratios being way off in those instructions. My first attempt was basically a science experiment gone wrong, smelled like a wet dog that rolled in old trash. The key is remembering that most kitchen scraps are basically water bombs waiting to happen. You gotta ADD dry material with EVERY single addition, like coffee grounds count as green too so don't fall for that trap. I started keeping a bag of shredded junk mail and torn up cardboard boxes right next to my compost bin. That way every time I dump veggie peels in there I throw a handful of that dry stuff on top and mix it in immediately. The smell went away in maybe three days after that and the pile finally started heating up.