Adventures in community composting!

Sometimes we find the darnest things in the compost bins at Collingwood Neighbourhood House. What's the weirdest thing you've ever encountered in your compost pile? For some entertaining stories about the do's and don'ts and bizarre and funny of the composting world, check out the Compost Diaries.

 Here are a few of today's highlights:

While turning the compost we discovered several plastic
gloves, plastic bags, and assorted other packaging. These
items don't break down and shouldn't be put in the
compost bins.

Very wet compost--needs more dry (brown) material such
as ripped up newspaper, cardboard, or dried leaves. 

We found that the compost was mostly wet kitchen scraps
with very little dry ("brown") material.
It was quite smelly! We mixed in shredded newspaper and
made sure to turn the compost several times to make sure
good air circulation is happening.

Meat and other cooked foods: Although the City of Vancouver is
able to collect cooked foods as part of the green waste composting
collection, small bins like ours do not heat up enough to
kill nasty microbes that can be produced by decomposing meat.
Cooked foods are especially smelly and they attract flies and
animals (especially mice and rats). Best to keep these out of the
bin.

Two whole sandwiches. We think they were meat or
cheese sandwiches. Oh no.