Individual composting
In your garden, kitchen, garage or on your balcony: composting at home is easy and practical. It only takes a few months to produce free fertiliser that is 100% natural. Want to get started?
Choose the right compost bin
The first step is the most important one. Do you need a bin? A wooden composter? Or a wormery? In fact, it all depends on where you live, the size of your garden and the type of waste you want to turn into compost. In small gardens, a bin is ideal. Its capacity will depend on the quantity of waste to be processed. Wormeries, on the other hand, are intended for indoor composting because they do not take up much space. If they are well looked after, they are very efficient and do not smell at all.
To make the right choice, check our guide to different composting techniques.
Do it yourself: it is easy to make all these different composting tools yourself with recycled materials. There are plenty of tutorials online!
How to compost successfully
A good balance of materials, aeration, moisture… good compost needs a bit of TLC (tender loving care). To find out all about the golden rules for great compost and to get it right from the start, head over to the Brussels Environment website or follow one of the training courses offered by the Region!
Any questions?
Compost Guides are volunteer citizens who share their knowledge and experience with new composters free of charge. There are more than 200 of them in the Brussels Capital Region, so you are bound to find one nearby.
The Region also offers a helpdesk service for all your composting questions:
infocompost@environnement.brussels
Plus a wide range of other support for composting, available on the service facilitator page.
You can put this in the compost bin
- Fruit and vegetable peelings
- Coffee grounds
- Teabags (but not pyramid-shaped bags)
- Waste from your vegetable garden
- Dead organic flowers and plants
- Eggshells
- Wood chips from deciduous trees (avoid conifers)
- Untreated sawdust
- Bark
- Straw
- Hedge trimmings with no leaves
- Nut shells (walnuts, hazelnuts etc.)
- Tissues and paper serviettes
- Cardboard, egg boxes WITHOUT coloured inks (which contain heavy metals)
Do not put this in the compost bin
- Sauces, fats and oils
- Leftovers of cooked food
- Waste of animal origin: meat, fish
- Dairy products: cheese, yoghurt, cream
- Bread
- Earth, sand, ashes
- Charcoal
- Contents of vacuum cleaner bags
- Synthetic materials
- Iron and other metals
- Cigarette ends
- Coloured newspapers, magazines
- Cut flowers from the florist’s
- Compostable packaging
