Can You Compost Meat, Bones and Other Dairy Products

Yes you can compost meat, bones and other dairy products if you want to. I know that there is a fairly strong myth out there that you can't do it for a variety of reasons. But with the proper precautions it is certainly possible to do. There are always a few concerns that come up with composting items such as these. The most common concerns are smell, animals and health and safety.

Dealing With Smell

The smell is something that can be easily managed by good technique and location of the composting pile. If you are truly concerned about smell then there are only two things you need to do to not have to worry about it. Location as with most things in life is key. You will want to put this pile in a place that is downwind of where you will spend a majority of your time. This way if their is any lingering smell it will be blown away from you and not towards you.

The second way to manage smell from a meat compost pile is to cover up the meat with a thick layer of dirt, finished compost, straw, leaves, wood chips what ever you have on hand. This thick layer will do two things to help out with the smell. First it will act as a physical and aromatic barrier to odor getting out. The smells from the other rotting items like leaves and straw have a smell of their own that may help mask the smell of the rotting meat. The second part is that all this carbon rich mulch will counter balance the nitrogen found in these products. The addition of lots of carbon will speed up the decomposition process and reduce smell.

Stopping Critters

Creatures of all sorts might be interested in what you have going on in that compost pile and this will usually merit extra precautions in keeping the pile secure. The best thing you can do in this scenario is do all the composting of products like this in a secure bin.

You can have a manufactured one like the Yimby Tumbler Composter This tumble composter like one of the many available out there is great for composting vegetation but the jury is out on doing meat scraps. On the face of it it looks like it would work rather good as it provides optimum composting conditions and it can keep small animals out.

If you would rather do the pile method then I would recommend building a bin first out of recycled pallets. For a guide on how to do that check out my How to make a compost bin using wood pallets article. After you have the bin built I would suggest a lid like I have on my current version of compost bin.

The lids keep the stray cats out

For extra security you could also attach chicken wire fencing to the wooden panels which should keep out all but the most determined critters.

Health and Safety

Finally we come to the big one that people are always really concerned about. Is it safe to add composted meat, bones and dairy products to my garden. Well assuming you hot composted it correctly by maintaining at least 130 degree for several days then yes you could. I personally wouldn't because I am worried that my composting skills are not quite up to that level of certainty For extra safety you can take the finished product and place it in a black trash bag, pail or garbage can and leave it in the sun. After about a week of getting baked in that container you can pretty much guarantee that any microbes in it are now dead.

If it's something that really concerns you then don't use the compost in the garden. I am sure you have tree or lawn grass that would appreciate the pick me up that this compost can give them.

One last thing is that composting meat, bones and dairy products is not something to be done by a novice composter. After you get some experience with the easier garden waste and kitchen scraps then try tackling these types of materials.

I am always happy to answer any composting questions so let me know if you have any.

Holy Crap Industrial Agriculture Finally Gets It.

I was perusing MSN and a news article caught my eye.

5 reasons Peak Food is the world's No. 1 ticking time bomb

Its gratifying a bit to see that what I and others like me have been talking about for years make it to the main page of a news site like MSN.  How modern agriculture is continuing to damage and degrade the worlds best soils.  This article states flat out that we cannot feed the projected 10 billion of 2050.  

We can't feed the 7 Billion we have now much less the 10 billion we will face with even more depleted resources and degraded land.  

Good for you MSN for having and article like this

I hope to see many more like it 

Composting Options For The Winter Months

Composting your leftover food scraps in the winter can be a challenge.  With the cold temperatures you can't get things to decompose like you want them to outside.  So that leaves you with a few options left on the table.

You can,

• Have a large enough outdoor bin to hold a winters worth of scraps.
• Throw everything in the trash
• Set up something inside to compost scraps.

The first option is the one that I am lucky enough to be able to do.  My two bins are large enough to hold a winters worth of material so I can just let it pile up until it can starting decomposing in the spring.

 This particular compost bin is made using recycled shipping pallets.  I find pallets to be one of the best things you can make compost bins out of since they can usually be found free and are easy to work with.  If you want to make one out of pallets you can check out my how to guide. 

How to make a compost bin using wood pallets

But if you don't have the space in your yard make one or two of these you can't really keep that much material on hand. 

Composting Inside

If you want to compost inside you still have a few options depending on how high tech you want to go and how much you want to spend.  One product that really jumps out is the Nature Mill Ultra Compost Bin.  This handy little gadget can digest up to 4 gallons of compostable materials a week and will turn it into great compost in a week or two.

Check out this great video of the Nature Mill in action.    

Vermicomposting

If you don't want to spend the money on something like that which is perfectly understandable your next best option is vermicomposting.  Vermicomposting is the use of worms more specifically red wiggler worms to eat up your kitchen scraps.  They can do this remarkably fast and with little to no odor.  They produce high quality worm casting and compost tea which is best described as plant food on crack.  To learn more about vermicomposting check out my Vermicomposting article in my Sustainable How To Guides and this article from the MN Pollution Control Agency on how to build a vermicomposting bin.

5 Gallon Pail Composting

The final option you have is to build your own small scale composter out of a 5 gallon pail.  Making one is fairly simple and all you need is a pail, lid and drill.  

Step 1 

Take the 5 gallon pail and lid and drill a series of small holes roughly a 1/4 inch in diameter in the lid 

Step 2 

Fill the bucket 1/2 to 2/3 full with material at the appropriate 30-1 Carbon to Nitrogen ratio. Typically kitchen waste will be higher in nitrogen than carbon so by using only that you should maintain a good ratio. You may need to add something like sawdust or pine shaving to bulk up the mixture and give it a little more carbon to work with.

Step 3

Moisten the mixture so everything is soaked evenly but water is not pooling the bottom of the bucket.

Step 4

Roll and shake the bucket until everything is evenly mixed in the bucket.  

Step 5

Place bucket somewhere warm and out the the way to let decomposition begin. 

Step 6  

Roll and shake the bucket every few days or when you add material to encourage aeration of the material in the bucket.  Keep the materiel evenly moist but well aerated is key to fast non smelly compost

This method will give you compost assuming you can maintain heat, moisture, aeration and the Carbon to Nitrogen ratio.  It acts in a similar way to the Nature Mill Ultra Compost Bin but is much more hands since it isn't automated.  You will also have to shift the finished compost through a screen to separate out the materials that still need more time.