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Residential Composting

Composting at Home
Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy

Residential Composting

At-home composting can be an easy way to use the food and yard waste from your home.

Composting requires three basic ingredients:

  1. Browns
  2. Greens
  3. Water

Browns are materials like dead leaves, branches, and twigs.

Greens can include grass clippings, vegetable waste, fruit scraps, and coffee grounds.

Composting at home can give you a way to enrich your soils, reduce the need for chemical fertilizers, encourage the production of beneficial bacteria and fungi in your soil while also reducing methane gas emissions from landfills and lowering your carbon footprint.

How To ...

  • Earthworms for composting in a person's hands

    How to Start Composting at Home

    Use the EGLE Home Composting Guide to begin.

    Do NOT compost materials if they promote disease, cause odors, attract pests, or create other nuisances. These include meat, fish, poultry, dairy products, foods containing animal fats, and human/pet feces.
     


  • How to Handle Invasive Weeds

    Invasive plant species SHOULD NOT be composted.

    Composting does not always kill invasive plants and could cause spread.

    Diseased, infested plants, or plants that were collected through an eradication or control program can be landfilled or incinerated.

    Examples of invasive plants include, but are not limited to, garlic mustard,

    purple loosestrife, and spotted knapweed.

    There are various organizations and agencies with specific programs in Michigan that target the control, removal, and eradication of invasive species. Many of these groups are part of Cooperative Invasive Species Management Areas (CISMAs) across Michigan. For more information on CISMAs and invasive species, visit Michigan.gov/Invasives.


  • Compost bins made by EGLE staffer Kent Walters

    How to Find a Compost Facility that Takes Yard Waste

    Check with your local city/township or use the Michigan Recycling Directory to find facilities near you.

    A list of registered composting facilities is posted at Michigan.gov/EGLECompost.



  • EGLE Classroom - Composting 

    Got a minute? Learn how to compost your yard waste into a valuable product you can use on your lawn or garden. All it takes is a few gardening tools and some materials from the local hardware store and you are on your way.

Contact us

Aaron Hiday, HidayA@Michigan.gov, 517-282-7546

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