Things You Can Compost, Plus Items You Definitely Shouldn’t
Updated: May 11, 2023Starting a compost pile in the backyard or participating in a municipal compost program? Good for you! Here's a list of things you can compost, as well as stuff you absolutely should not.
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Why You Should Consider Composting
Composting is an eco-friendly alternative to throwing items in the trash. You not only reduce landfill waste but also gain a nutrient-rich fertilizer for your garden. Once you get into the habit, it’s actually easy to compost. We’ve made a guide to things you can absolutely compost, sometimes compost, and never compost.
Green Light: Composting Vegetables and Fruits
Can you compost banana peels? How about potatoes? Yes and yes. Veggies and fruits are the quintessential compostable foods. You can compost them in any form: scraps and peels, raw or cooked, even when rotten. Make your own outdoor compost barrel tumbler with these project plans.
Yellow Light: Composting Cooked Foods and Leftovers
Obviously, the most eco-friendly, waste-free option is to eat all the food you buy, and use up leftovers! However you can compost virtually any cooked foods, including rice and other grains, breads, beans, pastas, sauces, soups, casseroles, eggs and so on. Skip them if they include a lot of meat or dairy — read on to find out why.
Yellow Light: Composting Meat and Bones
If you’re composting through a municipal program, you typically can compost cooked meats, including picked-over carcasses and bones. Home composters may want to avoid meat and bones, which can draw unwanted pests to the compost pile.
Can you compost raw meat? Nope.
Yellow Light: Composting Natural Plant Materials
You can compost most garden and kitchen plant waste. Think old herbs, twigs and pine cones, plant trimmings, even weeds. The caveat: Make sure none have gone to seed or display signs of disease. Composting weed seeds like dandelion puffballs will only help them spread; same with plant diseases. When in doubt, throw them out. These backyard composting products are brilliant.
Green Light: Composting Paper Products
Good news! You can compost most kinds of paper, as long as it’s not glossy (meaning no magazines or envelopes with plastic windows). That includes everything from dirty paper napkins to coffee filters; paper towel rolls to newspaper; letters and paper bags; even bedding from hamster cages. If home composting, shredding whole sheets of paper is most effective for quicker composting. (This shredder will do the trick!)
Green Light: Composting Eggshells
Like veggie scraps, eggshells are great to toss into the compost bin, though you might want to save them for these surprising home and garden uses.
Yellow Light: Composting Coffee and Tea
Spent coffee grounds and loose leaf tea are always compostable. If using disposable coffee cups or pods, you can compost the coffee but not the packaging. Likewise the string and tag of a tea bag are probably not compostable, but they’re easy to tug off and discard separately.
Yellow Light: Composting Dairy Products
We’re not sure why you’re not gobbling up the rest of that ice cream or cheese. But if you’re hoping to compost milk, butter, cream and other dairy products, here’s the scoop: Most municipal compost programs allow dairy products. For home composters, though, dairy may attract unwanted pests as it decomposes. You probably can compost a small quantity of dairy products by mixing them thoroughly with other organic matter, like leaves.
Red Light: Composting Plastic, Metal (Including Foil) and Glass
You probably know this, but never compost these materials! (Most can be recycled instead.) Watch for sneaky instances like stickers, tags and twist ties. Make sure to discard packaging separately from food.
Red Light: Composting Pet Waste
Manure is fertilizer, right? Be careful. Some herbivore waste may be OK to compost, but waste from dogs and cats is not — even if they eat homemade pet food. Err on the safe side and avoid composting waste. This includes kitty litter, even if you’ve scooped out the waste; it’s probably contaminated.
Yellow Light: Composting Cooking Oil
Cooking oil and other fats can slow the decomposition process. You may compost small quantities of vegetable oils, like olive, corn and sunflower. If you’ve just filled a pan for frying, reuse the oil for another batch! Same goes for bacon grease. (Strain out the food particles and save the oil in a sealed container.) When it’s spent, discard in the trash.
