How to compost non-plant food scraps (Black Soldier Fly bin)

[benpope]

Originally Posted by strider3700

Realistically you can't "safely" compost pizza, dairy, fats, meats, bread... at home your piles are very unlikely to be large enough to get hot enough and you'd have to be a guru at making compost constantly working on the pile to keep it right. I don't attempt to compost any of that at home even though I extensively compost vegetable matter.

It turns out you can do it easily without traditional composting methods. This summer I started a Black Soldier Fly larvae bin where I composted all kitchen scraps including fat, meat, and bones. It isn't exactly for the feint of heart, but as long as it has good drainage there is little smell. The larvae eat up all organic matter before the bacteria have a chance to make a putrid mess of it. But, You better believe my wife let me open up the bucket to throw in kitchen scraps .

Unlike houseflies, BSF are not a pest to humans and do not spread disease. They only eat in their pupa/larva forms; the adult flies are focused solely on reproduction and don't care about your potato salad.

I originally set this up as chicken feed, that is before my chickens were eaten by a hungry and determined raccoon. But, it ended up being a great way to get rid of all of those "un-compostable" bits of organic matter.

This is a terrifying time-stop video of BSF larvae eating two rainbow trout.

I used a bucket-in-bucket method. Drill drainage holes in one bucket and line the bottom with shredded newspaper, peat moss, or coir. Then, place that bucket inside the other. I just put in organic matter and the BSF showed up on their own. I covered most of the bucket with a lid leaving room for new flies to enter. You can also make a more complex setup that "auto harvests" the flies to feed to fish or poultry, but since mine was just PoC I kept it simple.