The least expensive compost bins are those made of scrap pallets that can be, sometimes, obtained from many businesses, however, many of these pallets are now being recycled and the shipper may charge the business if the pallets are not returned. Next least expensive is 12 feet of fence fabric, Tot Lot fencing is more expensive than just 2 x 4 mesh welded wire. There are plans all over the web for composters and one, from Seattle Tilth, is linked below. As a rule a bottom is not required, just a bit of care when emptying your bin. Plywood could be used but for one to last a while it would need to be pressure treated which is both expensive and environmentally not a good idea. Before looking into purchasing a shredder/chipper rent one or more to see what you need and also look closely at how much you will really use one. Once every 3 or 4 months may indicate it would be cheaper to rent than own, but once a month may indicate it is less expensive to own. Here is a link that might be useful: 3 bin composter

The sign of a 'professional' composter must be the number of various bins they've used. Lloyd wins hands down! I used a wire mesh bin years ago but didn't like it. Too much work to pull it off and shovel all the compost back in. I've used various bins made of wood, lastly pallets. Apparently I also compost snow. I'm now just using a pile as it's easier to access and turn. Out here in the country no one cares how pretty it is as long as it's kinda out of the landscaped area. All winter I collect kitchen scraps in this 42" tall black container which we place about 20' from the house. Easier to shovel a path thru the snow to it instead of 100' to a pile. It has no bottom so after spring thaw I just lift it off, shovel into a wheelbarrow and move to wherever I want to make a pile, layering with wood shavings. My preferred method over the summer is to bury kitchen scraps and let the worms and microscopic organisms do their thing underground. Works the best for me and it's really easy.

I've tried a variety of composting methods over the years. My first was a 3' circle of chicken wire (all I could afford). The side aeartion was nice, but I kept getting the pitchfork tines stuck in the chicken wire. After that, I made a compost garden. That was an 8' octogon raised frame bed with a 2'diameter chicken wire in the middle. I dumped compostable stuff in the chicken wire, never turned it, and let nurients leach into the surrounding soil to feed cucumbers up the chicken wire, tomotos outside that and bell peppers and flowers and the outer ring. Worked well actually. More interesting, I happened to drive past the old house and, 20 years later, the octogon is still there (but with roses)! When I moved, I tried a plastic cylander that you filled up, waited a few weeks, lifted up and moved to the side and refilled from the old pile and with new material. It actually worked OK, but it was a pain to move. I finally build a real double compost bin. 4x4x3'H. I got tired of turning the compost from 1 bin to another and they both ended up being filled. That meant I had to fork everything out of one bin onto the ground, move the 2nd bin into the 1st, and move all the outside stuff into the 2nd. And the rich supply of melon rinds, carrot and potato peels, etc from the kitchen waste was attracting critters. Well, if they were eating the best stuff, it wasn't doing me any good. I decided to re-think the whole process... I started to leave my grass clippings on the lawn (free fertilizer). And I decided that the trees needed the nutrients from the decomposing leaves, so I merely shredded them with the mower and left them in place. That way, they wouldn't blow away, and any blown-in leaves would add to the nutrient pile. But I still had kitchen waste and weeds to compost. So I got an aerated closed tumbler to use for the rich critter-tempting stuff. The built compost bins get all the weeds and old flower stems and such. With an occasional shovel of fertile garden soil, that stuff breaks down eventually. The compost tumbler doesn't make compost worth a darn, but it does hold the kitchen waste nicely until it is too far gone to attract critters. So then it goes onto the old compost bins (turning it in once a month isn't much trouble). The other half of my new system is to get free mulch from the County recycling Center. It is lousy mulch, but only becuase it is way too decomposed for mulch. It does however make great compost after it sits for a year. It is as good as the leaf compost available commercially. I even let all my chicken bones dry out in the basement, pound them into pieces, and toss them in the kitchen waste tumbler to break down (free bonemeal) So the lawn keeps its clippings, the trees keep the fallen leaves, the critters can't get at the tempting kitchen waste, the old compost bins slowly provide some compost with little effort, and the year-old "mulch" is good as soil. I'm actually accumulating more than I can use. Guess where it is going? On the lawn! I have one of those pushable mesh barrels to sprinkle compost over the lawn. Anything that doesn't fall out through the mesh goes back onto the compost bin. :)

You can use pretty well anything that holds the decomposing matter but, with any container the size of a garbage can you want to be able to get into it to remove the finished product. This winter, put an amount of snow into the container. Then try to get it out. Its wet, and its heavy. Try to put a spade or shovel in there and bring out what you can. Very difficult to manoeuvre a shovel from the top to reach into the container to remove anything. Containers with wet (damp)composting matter has weight which you might think you can roll around, but once you dampen it, it becomes a sotted mass which is very heavy. You'll be lucky if you can put it down on its side, let alone roll it. And then whaddya do....lift it? Good luck! For $200.00 you could build a better mousetrap or the luxury penthouse of a compost bin. For that much you could buy double the amount of wood and build a proper compost bin. For a lot less than that, you could build a couple compost bins with old wood pieces. There are a number of recipes for building a compost bin on the network. Location, location, location ...is important so read articles on 'where to put a compost bin'.