Backyard Composting 

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Backyard Composting

Compost Bin Location

Harvesting Compost

Starting or Restarting Your Bin

Resources to help get started composting at home:

• A Homeowner's Guide to Composting
• City of Minneapolis: Backyard Composting
• Eartheasy: How to Make Composting Easy
• Hennepin County: Home Composting Factsheet
• HomeAdvisor: Composting and Landscaping at Home
• Minnesota Extension: Composting in Home Gardens​
• MPCA: Reduce.org (Backyard composting, diagnosing common backyard composting problems, vermi [worm] composting)
• ​MPCA: How do I use Compost?
• US Composting Council: Compost and It's Benefits Factsheet
• Yard Waste Care - Start and Make Compost at Home
• ​Porch: Backyard Composting

For more information on how composting your organic materials through collection or drop-off programs benefits our economy, visit the MPCA's website.

Compost Use

Backyard vs. Commercial Composting

Full Backyard Compost Video​

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Benefits of Composting

• Increases infiltration and permeability of heavy soils, thus 
• reducing erosion and runoff. 
• Improves water holding capacity, thus reducing water loss and leaching in sandy soils. 
• Supplies a variety of macro and micronutrients. 
• May control or suppress certain soil-borne plant 
• pathogens. 
• Supplies significant quantities of organic matter. 
• Improves cation exchange capacity (CEC) of soils and 
• growing media, thus improving their ability to hold nutrients for plant use. 
• Supplies beneficial microorganisms to soils and growing media. 
• Improves and stabilizes soil pH. 
• Can bind and degrade specific pollutants

What happens to the organics I place in a cart for collection from my home?

Watch the MPCA's Large-Scale Composting video below to find out!