Free tool
Compost greens and browns calculator
Enter how many kitchen and yard scraps you collect each week. See how many browns to add to keep your pile balanced, how fast your bin will fill, and how much waste you'll keep out of the trash. Nothing is stored.
Add browns each week
7.5 gallons
- Greens a week
- 3 gal
- Everything a week
- 10.5 gal
- Weeks to fill the bin
- About 19
- Kitchen scraps saved a year
- 104 gal
For 3 gallons of greens a week, add about 7.5 gallons of browns, like dry leaves or shredded cardboard. A 27 cubic foot bin would fill in about 19 weeks, though the pile shrinks as it breaks down.
A rule of thumb by volume, not a precise recipe. Adjust by feel: add browns if it's wet or smelly, and greens or water if it's dry and slow. Estimates only.
Keep it balanced
- Know your greens and browns. See greens and browns.
- Check what goes in. See what can you compost?
- Fix problems. See why does my compost smell?