Urban Composting--It Went Anaerobic!

Oh boy.  So, I was keeping our composting kitchen waste on our balcony in a cardboard box with several layers of cardboard underneath it to absorb the draining moisture.  Then I saw a food grade 5 gallon barrel on the street discarded by a restaurant.  I thought keeping the material in plastic with a lid (but poking holes throughout the barrel to ventilate) would contain the insects inside the barrels instead of swarming around our tiny balcony.  I had too much material to fit in one barrel, so I still kept the cardboard box and searched the streets for more discarded barrels with no luck.  After a week of daily rain, things have dried out and the insects are taking over out there.  I had to give up and go buy another barrel.  They decrease the insect swarms, but its a balancing act here.     

Cardboard breaths and drains, plastic does not.  I turned the original barrel to find a pool of liquid at the bottom.  I smelled the retched stench of anaerobic decomposition.  Deprived of oxygen, the microorganisms that decompose the material break it down with a chemical process that off-gasses methane.  The methane in my barrel was sealed in by the weight of the material.  When I turned it, the methane was released...It is a powerful, powerful smell. 

I sat out there for 45 minutes, turning the material to expose it to oxygen and start to dry it out.  I have to let it air out probably for a few days, so the biggest reason why I switched to plastic barrels, to contain the flies, cannot be employed yet.  The barrels will ultimately require more maintenance than the cardboard box to keep them aerobic and not too wet.

What I am learning is that ultra-urban composting (on a 20 square foot 7th floor balcony) is about balancing your priorities.  Consider the labor you want to input, ventilation, moisture level, carbon level, insects, and odors.  

Tight parameters lead to creativity.