HOW TO COMPOST with INCA COMPOST BINS

1. Segregate kitchen waste into two INCA^� bins: What can be added to the INCA^� compost bin and what cannot be added into the bin. Items that can be composted include fruit rinds and vegetable peelings, corn stalks and leaves, eggshells, tea and coffee grinds, seeds of fruits and vegetables, and food scraps (rice, spoiled viands, cooked fish and chicken bones). The items that cannot be composted include raw fish entrails, raw meat, large bones, cheese and other fatty items. These need to be disposed of via our daily trash pick up.
2. Open the INCA COMPOST BIN and place the items to be composted into the bin. Add a thin layer of soil to cover the newly added items.
3. Add in garden wastes, including weeds, leaves, grass clippings, dried flowers, plant trimmings, and tree branches. To allow for faster decomposing, chop up or shred branches and leaves into smaller pieces. Add these items into the compost bin. Sprinkle the new layer with water to keep the compost moist.
4. Add in selected household wastes including pieces of cotton, scraps of cloth, pieces of paper. All these items should be torn into small pieces (smaller than one-inch squares). If there is some construction debris like saw dust, wood chips, scrap wood, these can also be added into the compost bin. Add another thin layer of soil to the bin. Every day that you add in new wastes into your compost bin, remember to cover with a thin layer of soil to prevent unpleasant odors and pests, and to speed up the decomposition.
5. Cover the INCA bin. Do not forget to wash your hands after handling the compost!
6. The compost should start to warm up in a few days from starting the composting process. This means that decomposition is taking place. As it decomposes, the compost needs to "breathe." To help circulate the air, turn the pile with a garden fork every 4-5 days. Lift the material from the top and sides of the bin and toss around. If you do not have a garden fork, you can try stirring it with a stick instead. However, this will not distribute the air as evenly, so the composting process will be slower.
7. The compost also needs water. Your compost pile should be as damp as a wrung-out sponge-moist to the touch-but no water should come out when you squeeze a handful. If the compost pile is too dry, poke holes into the pile and water it from the top with a trickling hose. If the pile is too wet, put the bin to dry in sunlight.
8. With continued caring, the compost should be finished in about a month’s time. The finished product should be dark and crumbly, fresh smelling, with very little of the original material identifiable. You may harvest the compost by tilting the INCA^� compost bin on one side and scraping the compost at the bottom of the bin.

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