For Residents

Helpful Hints

Break the materials into small pieces before adding them to your pile. Smaller pieces break down quickly. This can be done with pruning shears, scissors, a machete, your lawnmower or a weed eater in a garbage can.
Cover food waste to avoid attracting insects. Bury your kitchen scraps as you add them. In winter months, when flies are not a problem, switch to using leaves as cover material.
Save some leaves from your fall/spring clean-up to add to your compost pile during the summer months when "brown" or carbon rich material is scarce. Dry leaves will add air voids to your composter, especially if most of your other material is grass clippings. The leaves' high carbon content will also offset the excess nitrogen in grass and prevent any odour problems from developing.
Don't compost only grass clippings. Grass clippings alone tend to clump, compress, and hinder aeration. Odours may also be produced as the excess nitrogen in grass is converted to ammonia. An easier choice is using extra clippings as mulch, or simply leave clippings on the lawn. If you have no access to dry carbon materials, dry grass clippings in the sun, and then add them. During periods when grass grows rapidly, some of the clippings can be bagged and added later to avoid overfilling the composter with one kind of material.
Winter composting: Winter weather will stop or drastically slow down the composting process. Keep the pile working longer by siting it in a sunny location to take advantage of solar gain, and shelter it from windchill using bales of hay or bags of leaves, or by tucking cardboard inside the north and west sides. Once your bin is full, kitchen wastes may be put lined containers, left outside to freeze, and added the following spring. If your bin is far from the house, the lined container method may make winter composting more convenient. If using this method, consider how you will carry all that material to your bin in spring and keep in mind that if allowed to sit unfrozen in its container it will develop an unplesant odour. Once air is mixed in, the odour will become less noticable - cover with soil if necessary.
Request a Compost Doctor: Waste Management Services has a team of helpful Master Composter Volunteers who are happy to help you with your composting problems. Request a compost doctor at MCRP@edmonton.ca, or by phoning the Master Composter/Recycler Program at 780-496-5051.