Typically the only kitchen waste items NOT recommended to include in your compost are meat and dairy products. Not because they don't compost well - they do - but because they often attract scavengers like raccoons, rats, possum, etc.

Compostable papers include things like the rolls from paper towels and TP (and the paper itself if you so desire), pizza boxes, uncoated paper cups and plates, coffee filters, Kleenex type tissues and paper food cartons. If you live in a progressive part of the country, many fast-food wrapper are also compostable.

And then there are the newspapers, junk mail and cardboard contributors. And leaves, grass clippings, prunings, last year's plant leavings, even weeds, if not in flower or seed.

Here is a link that might be useful: check this out - you can compost darn near anything!

Pretty much every year someone starts a post "You might be a compost wacko if . . ." or "What did you put in your compost pile today?" or something like that. You can search for it either here, in organic gardening or in veggie gardening (or someone with more patience than I might actually link it for you!) People talk about what they compost -- you can learn a lot.

If you have a garden there is a lot of refuse. I am eating the last collards, and I eat about 30% of what is there. Squash generates a lot of refuse, potato and banana peels, coffee and tea bags, and of course apple peels (my family eats about 3 lbs of apples a day). At the end of the year, there is a good trash can worth of dried asparagus fronds from the garden, two trash cans worth of tomato plants, and two from dead squash vines. Each pound of refuse mixes well with two pounds of dry leaves, and pretty soon, you have enough to maintain a garden.

So who's gonna start the thread? Yesterday I said to myself - hey there hasn't been a what-did-I-put-in-my etc thread in ages!!

Or does anyone dump leftover food from lunches and supper into their composter? Any concern about bacteria there?

Yes, and no. When you are dumping things into a compost heap, the bacteria aren't going to be a problem because the compost microbes view them as lunch. I dump food scraps (post cooking, post meal) into the bin.

Anything that will decay can be composted - One of my piles has a cottontail rabbit in it. By the time I break down the pile, it will be gone, or maybe just bones.

I don't compost cactus prunings ... the pads are fine, but the danged spines live forever!

Has anyone watched this video. I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Here is a link that might be useful: everything we know about composting is wrong

When dead/brown leaves are scarce in the spring and summer months, but I still need some browns to add to the growing compost bin (which will have plenty of greens at that time), then I use paper towels from work. We have a small office and pretty much all the paper towels from drying our hands are nice and clean -- they were just used once to dry someone's hands.

I save newspaper for other purposes but that, along with all the cardboard shipping boxes from stuff that I buy online, could also be used.

There are many things you are missing from your list, but it just depends on how big or how fast you want your compost pile to grow. We certainly could compost quite a lot of stuff that we currently throw away. Now and then, you see some people report about how much less trash they actually throw away now that they got into composting and vermicomposting, and the difference is really amazing.

No reason to leave ANY food waste (other than meat and dairy as mentioned) out of the compost, cooked or not, half eaten or not, spoiled or fresh, moldy, macerated or dropped on the floor, licked by the dog or flung by babies.

All due respect to weednfeed, but it always gives me a chuckle when folks worry about putting rotten or bacteria laden stuff into the compost. It just has a head start! Compost is a decomposition process conducted by microbes. Translation: controlled rotting.

coffee grounds from starbucks.
they give me a few pounds a day until my bin was full.
added lots of grass clippings and leaves
fruit peels and leftover lettuce etc...

i threw in a couple of handfuls of dirt and decaying leaves etc...
its good to go now

Eat more vegetables! :D

I have asked grocery stores for trimmings from their produce department but their policies vary and some will not share.

One winter we collected coffee grounds from a local coffee shop at the rate of several large totes a week.

We have driven around in the fall prior to large garbage pick up when people have bags of leaves at the curb and gotten many bags that way.

I pick up horse manure from my pasture and have also gotten a trailer load of barn cleanings from a local riding stable. Unfortunately a local composting business now gets it.

You might check if Asplundh does brush clearing in your area as there is a possibility of getting a truck load of freshly mulched small trees. Depending on where you live it could be less expensive for them to deliver a truck load than to take it to the landfill.

For small amounts of kitchen trimmings I recommend trench composting as it feeds the worms who multiply and produce a lot of castings. Much more beneficial than spending time composting when one is not able to find enough to compost.