My compost bin was secretly a plastic museum for 9 months

I kept tossing 'compostable' bags and labeled takeout containers into our backyard bin in Austin, feeling pretty proud. Then I dug it out last weekend to start a new batch and found 6 intact bags and a stack of those green forks, all looking brand new. Turns out my pile was too dry and not hot enough, so nothing was breaking down. My neighbor Dave, who runs a worm farm, took one look and laughed, said I was running a storage unit, not compost. I had to hand-pick every piece of plastic-looking junk and restart the whole thing with proper greens and browns. Has anyone else discovered their compost was just a very slow time capsule?

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scott.shane8d ago

Reminds me of when I bought a "compost crank" tool online and spent a whole summer turning my pile twice a week like some kind of gym rat. Felt real good about it too. Then winter came and I just quit messing with it for like four months. Dug in come spring and found a whole avocado pit sitting there like a fossil, still hard as a rock. Some eggshells too, looking exactly the same as day one. My pile never got hot enough either, mostly because I was too lazy to add enough greens and just kept dumping coffee grounds on top like that counts as doing something. Lesson learned, browns and greens actually matter and moisture does too.

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