Three systems work in a home with no yard: a worm bin, a bokashi bucket, or an electric countertop composter. Pick by what you throw away. If your scraps are mostly peelings, coffee grounds and tea, a worm bin costs the least to run and produces the best finished product. If you need to deal with meat, dairy and cooked leftovers, bokashi is the only one of the three that takes them without complaint. If you want no living organisms in the kitchen and are willing to pay for that, an electric unit dries and grinds scraps in hours, though what comes out is not compost yet.
None of them should smell. When one does, the cause is nearly always too much food added too fast.
Why bother composting in an apartment?
Food scraps are the single largest category of material sent to US landfills — about 24 percent of everything buried, according to the US EPA — and because they break down there without oxygen, food waste is responsible for roughly 58 percent of the methane released from landfills. Composting at home turns the wettest fraction of your trash into food for houseplants or a planter.
If your building or city offers organics collection, that is the lowest-effort route; see our guide to food waste recycling routes. This article is for everyone else.
The three indoor systems compared
| Worm bin | Bokashi bucket | Electric composter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup cost | $30–150 (or ~$15 DIY tote) | $40–80 for two buckets and bran | $300–600 |
| Running cost | Nothing beyond bedding | Bran: roughly $10–20 per 2–3 months | Electricity plus replacement carbon filters |
| Accepts meat, dairy, cooked food | No | Yes | Most models yes, in moderation |
| Accepts citrus, onion, garlic | Small amounts only | Yes | Yes |
| Time to usable output | 3–6 months for the first harvest | 2 weeks in bucket + 2–4 weeks in soil | 4–24 hours per cycle, then weeks of curing |
| What comes out | Finished castings, ready to use | Acidic pre-compost that must be buried | Dried, ground scraps; not yet compost |
| Footprint | 24 × 16 in (60 × 40 cm) tote | Two 5-gallon (19 L) buckets | Bread-maker sized, needs an outlet |
| Living organisms to manage | Yes, worms | Microbes on the bran only | None |
| Needs somewhere to finish | No | Yes: soil, planter or outdoor heap | Yes: mix into soil or compost |
The last row matters most for apartment dwellers. Only the worm bin produces something usable straight away; with no planters, no balcony and no friend with a garden, it is the only complete system here.
What is the best indoor composting method for an apartment?
For most people it is a worm bin: it is cheapest, produces finished compost, and has the most research behind it. Both the University of Maryland Extension and Oregon State University Extension publish detailed guides aimed at indoor bins, while an Ask Extension response notes there is very little university research on bokashi by comparison. Choose bokashi instead if a significant share of your scraps is meat, fish, dairy, bread or cooked food, or if keeping a thousand worms under the sink is a dealbreaker for anyone in the household. Choose an electric unit purely for convenience.
Setting up a worm bin
Vermicomposting uses red wigglers (Eisenia fetida), a surface-dwelling composting worm, not garden earthworms, which burrow deep and die in a shallow bin. According to Oregon State University Extension, a bin should be no more than about 12 inches (30 cm) deep, because red wigglers live in the top few inches and anything deeper turns anaerobic beneath them. A standard 18-gallon (68 L) storage tote works well.
- Sizing. Allow 1 square foot (0.09 m²) of surface per pound (0.45 kg) of scraps added per week. A 24 × 16 in (60 × 40 cm) tote gives about 2.7 square feet, enough for 2–3 lb (1–1.4 kg) of scraps a week.
- Worms. Cornell’s worm composting guide suggests half a pound of worms, about 500 individuals, is enough to start a small bin, and that one pound of worms works through roughly a pound of food a week when the bin is new.
- Bedding. Fill the bin 6–8 inches (15–20 cm) deep with shredded newspaper, cardboard or coconut coir, as damp as a wrung-out sponge. Bedding is the carbon that stops odors; food always goes underneath it.
- Temperature. The University of Maryland Extension gives the working range as 55–77°F (13–25°C): a closet or under-sink cabinet, not an uninsulated balcony.
- Air and drainage. Drill 1/4-inch (6 mm) holes around the upper sides and a few in the base, and stand the bin in a tray. Much liquid in the tray means the bin is too wet.
Our worm composting guide covers species, bedding and harvesting in more depth.
Feeding schedule for the first 90 days
| Weeks | Feed per pound of worms | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Nothing for the first few days, then about 1/2 cup (120 mL), buried | Worms should disperse into bedding, not cluster at the lid |
| 3–6 | Up to 1 lb (450 g) per week, in two or three small feedings | Previous feeding mostly gone before adding more |
| 7–12 | Increase gradually toward 1/2 lb (225 g) per day if it disappears | Any sour smell means back off and add dry bedding |
| 12+ | Steady state; first harvest of castings possible at 3–6 months | Population has roughly doubled |
Bury each feeding under at least 2 inches (5 cm) of bedding, rotating around the bin. Avoid meat, dairy, oily food, and more than a little citrus, onion or garlic; otherwise the composting do’s and don’ts list applies.
Setting up a bokashi bucket
Bokashi is fermentation, not composting. Scraps are packed into an airtight bucket in layers with bran inoculated with lactic acid bacteria and yeasts, pressed down to exclude air, and left sealed. The microbes pickle the material rather than rotting it, so meat and dairy are fine.
The University of Saskatchewan’s gardening extension describes the procedure. The bucket needs either a false bottom with a tap, or 2–3 inches (5–8 cm) of dry sawdust in the base to absorb liquid. Add scraps in layers about 1 inch (2.5 cm) deep, chopped to 2–3 inch (5–8 cm) pieces, and sprinkle 1–2 tablespoons of bran over each layer. Press down firmly, seal the lid, and open it as briefly as possible.
When the bucket is full, leave it sealed for at least two weeks, which is why bokashi is run with two buckets: one fermenting while the other fills. A sharp, vinegary smell and white surface mold are normal; a rotten smell or black or green mold means air got in and the batch has failed. If the bucket has a tap, drain it every two or three days. Diluted roughly 1:100 with water, the liquid can feed plants; undiluted it damages roots.
Finishing. The fermented material is acidic, still looks like food, and must be buried in soil to break down. For apartments, the University of Saskatchewan suggests putting several inches of soil in a large tub, blending the bucket contents in, covering with more soil, and leaving it for two weeks. Around six weeks after sealing, the scraps should have dissolved into the soil. Keep plant roots away for the first two weeks of burial; the acidity burns them.
How electric composters actually work
An electric kitchen composter is a small heated drum with a grinder and a fan. Over a few hours to a day it heats the scraps to drive off moisture, grinds them to a coarse meal, and vents the exhaust through an activated-carbon filter. The output is dry, crumbly, and roughly a tenth of the original volume.
The output is dehydrated ground food, not compost; rewet it and it will mold. It needs mixing into soil or an outdoor pile at a low ratio, or curing, before it helps plants. Carbon filters are consumables, and a saturated one is the usual reason a unit starts to smell. Think of it as a dehydrator that makes scraps easier to store and carry.
Can you compost indoors without it smelling?
Yes, and a system that smells is telling you something specific.
| Smell | System | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sour, rotten | Worm bin | Overfeeding; food rotting before worms reach it | Stop feeding for a week, stir in dry shredded paper |
| Ammonia | Worm bin | Too much nitrogen-rich food, too little bedding | Add a thick layer of dry cardboard, feed less |
| Musty, swampy | Worm bin | Too wet, not enough air | Add dry bedding, check drainage holes, leave lid ajar a day |
| Rotten (not vinegary) | Bokashi | Air got in, or too little bran | Batch has failed; bury it outdoors and start again with more bran |
| Sharp vinegar | Bokashi | Normal fermentation | No action; only opens briefly when adding scraps |
| Burnt or cooked food | Electric | Normal during cycle | Run at night; a saturated filter makes it worse |
| Any smell between cycles | Electric | Filter exhausted or unit not emptied | Replace filter, empty and dry the drum |
Separately, empty the counter caddy daily or keep it in the freezer.
Do worm bins attract fruit flies?
They can, and it is the most common complaint about indoor vermicomposting. Fruit flies arrive as eggs on fruit skins, especially bananas and melons. Bury every feeding, lay damp newspaper over the surface, and freeze fruit scraps for 24 hours before feeding to kill the eggs. If an infestation starts, stop feeding fruit for two weeks and set a dish of cider vinegar with a drop of dish soap beside the bin.
What do you do with the output if you have no garden?
Worm castings are mild and can go straight on houseplants, be mixed at up to a quarter of the volume of potting soil, or be steeped in water for a day as a liquid feed. A few pounds of scraps a week yields a few quarts of castings every few months.
Bokashi and electric output need soil: the soil-tub method above, a deep planter with a spare corner, or an arrangement with a community garden or a neighbor’s heap, which takes either as an ordinary green addition.
Start with half your scraps
Indoor systems usually fail because they take the household’s total food waste on day one. Every system needs to ramp up. Run one on roughly half your scraps for the first month and expand once it keeps up. A worm bin underfed for a month is fine; one overfed for a week is the one that gets given up on.