This guy did it and I've read about many others as well. No reason I can think of why it wouldn't work but yes, air is important.

Lloyd

Dave has a pretty darn nice explanation/illustration as well. (forgot about that one, sorry Dave)

Lloyd

The heat comes from the composting process, rather than the black color of the container. The color of the bin, and a sunny yard location; have almost nothing to do with speeding up the composting process. Having a good mix of materials, the right amount of moisture, and the correct size bin are the important factors in 'hot' composting.

Lots of things will serve as a bin or composting container. My favorite is a 4' diameter round mesh bin made of hardware cloth, the last one costs $15.

Rolling the container around the yard sounds like a mess, and too much work. There are some tumblers which are rolled around rather then rotated. I gave away my tumbler away last year, way too much work for the amount of compost.

Some good ideals in above post.
A 70 year young friend of mine, put his shredded oak leaves in black trash bags, with a few cups of water. Every day he would go out the the carport & flip the bags, by spring they were composted & he mixed them in the holes for his tomatoes.
His garden was covered with grass & he mowed it. He had tomatoes standing up in a fresh cut grasses cover crop.
He always gave away more tomatoes then he keep or could use.

I use a garbage pail that cracked; perfect for drainage. Right in my garden I have a couple of mesh containers that were for a paper shredder; a constant source of tea (I'll remove it in the spring so it doesn't diminish the beauty of the flowers.) Anyway, my compost mantra is one single word ... Free!

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'.

Goren, you left out one thing. Location. ;)

I have a metal 55gal drum with lid & locking ring.
So I will try the coffee waste/paper shreds to see how they compost in a drum.
But I agree with goren about the $200.00. Some of us have been given lumber for the hauling off. 3/4"X6"X12"-15 of these & 3/4"X6"X48"-12 of these. Out of 200 people only 3 people ask for some of the lumber. I have made 4 raised beds so far.
If you go to some plants they will give you old pallets(40"X48"X6").

I have 3 black plastic bins out by my grapes. I want the compost contained only to keep out critters. If critters werent a problem I would use blocks or wood. I think the containers being black helps some but I would not rely on it to bring heat up.
As i mentioned on another thread I now have a black plastic trash can in my garage. I insulated it and put a 40 watt bulb in it. The temp inside reached 91 degrees. The temp in the garage is about 20.I intend to put a timer on it to make it more efficient. I am not so concerned about getting the temps above 150 like i am in the summer. No weeds or seeds now.I just want to get all the little soil magicians busy. and i will add worms. Happy Composting johnny