Once the domain of organic communes and college town vegan restaurants, composting has become an increasingly normal part of municipal life in the US. More cities are adopting mandatory composting—notably New York City this year—and interest in composting at home has grown alongside.
If you, like many of us staffers at BA, live in an area where composting is required, you’ve probably had to pick up some new habits in the kitchen when it comes to food scraps. Yes, there are many ways to make your own compost at home, like with a tech-y food cycler or a bokashi compost system, but if you have no use for finished compost or no space for a compost pile, you’re better off just dumping your fruit and veggie scraps in the city-provided bin. For that, you’ll need a designated receptacle for food waste separate from your trash bin and recycling. This is where countertop compost caddies come into play. These convenient compact containers serve as the in-between step before scraps make it outside.
Some might be satisfied with a simple bowl on the countertop or a baggie in the freezer, but if dumping scraps every time you cook isn’t realistic, or you consider your freezer to be premium real estate, you’ll want a kitchen compost bin that can handle a few days’ worth of scraps.
Best countertop compost bins
- Best countertop compost caddy with bags: Joseph Joseph Stainless Steel Compost Caddy
- Best bagless compost caddy: Epica Stainless Steel Bin
We tested a range of countertop compost bins to get a sense of how well they functioned as food scrap intermediaries. The perfect design was elusive, but we found a couple of designs that get the job done, all while minimizing household odors. Read on for our top picks for best compost bins, plus how we tested them.
Best countertop compost caddy with bags: Joseph Joseph Stainless Steel Compost Caddy
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Secures bag cleanly and discreetly
- Sleek, modern look
- Makes disposal quick and tidy
Cons:
- Putting in a new bag can be slightly annoying
Specs
- Material: Stainless Steel
- Capacity: 4 Liters
- Product Dimensions: 8.23"L x 6.85"W x 11.93"H
What we love: In a crowd of imperfect siblings, this compost caddy offered the best user experience out of the caddies designed for bags. While not without its flaws, it did a great job minimizing mess and odor when tasked with transporting a full bag from the kitchen to the outdoor compost bin (or city collection bin).
The unique feature of this caddy is a removable internal bin with its own handle in addition to the exterior handle for the entire caddy. That means you can bring the whole caddy outside, pop out the inner bin, dump your scraps, and return the caddy into the kitchen without risk of leaks.
Why does this matter? When we surveyed compost caddy users, minimizing smell was the most important issue for people. There are two ways odors seep out of these bins: passively as they sit on the counter, and in stronger bursts each time you open the bin. The latter is more responsible for unpleasant smells, especially because your face is close each time you open it.
This caddy limits that by letting you do the whole disposal process outdoors. Similar caddies, which secure the bag with a ring attached to the outer lid, require two hands to remove before you can remove the bag. Doing this inside means a longer amount of time spent with the compost caddy open to the air, and doing this outside was more cumbersome and tedious to do. As for passive smells, this caddy did better than average at keeping them contained.
Overall, if you don’t like dealing with odors of rotting food, this caddy will spare you from having to do so to a greater degree than others out there, and will look nice as well.
What we’d leave: The dual-bin setup that makes this caddy so great is also what makes it a touch annoying. Putting the bag on the internal bin is a bit fussy. You’ll need to lift the internal handle to attach a new bag, and when you set it back into the outer bin, the edges of the bag can bunch up. This is especially true if you’re using a generic bag instead of the custom bags Joseph Joseph designed for this caddy. Usually, I’m against bags with bespoke dimensions for trashcans, but since compost caddy bags aren’t as easy to find in stores, you’re probably going to have to order them online anyway, so you might as well get the ones designed for the caddy. Overall, if you’re sensitive to smells, this is a small trade off worth making.
Best bagless compost caddy: Epica Stainless-Steel Bin
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Simple, durable design
- Affordable
- All-metal construction is easy to clean and doesn’t absorb odors
Cons:
- No way to secure a bag (and looks awkward if you try)
- Requires regular washing if used bagless
Specs
- Material: Stainless Steel
- Capacity: 1.3 Gallons
- Product Dimensions: 7.16"L x 7.16"W x 11"H
What we love: This compost caddy is made of metal, which is more durable, easier to wash, and won't absorb odors compared to plastic. All of this matters if you’re going bagless, as batch after batch of rotting food and vegetable scraps can degrade plastic over time. It’s simple, it’s straightforward, it doesn’t look hideous.
What we’d leave: This bin ranked on the lower end of the pack in terms of its ability to contain scent. Since plastic is known to absorb odors over time, we feel better about the longterm performance about a stainless-steel bin for bagless use. Our recommendation if you really want to avoid smells, is to empty it every couple of days—don't wait for it to fill up.
If you’re planning on using bags or your local municipality requires it, there’s no way to secure the bag to this bin, so if you do use one, it will loosely hang out in a rather unsightly way. Sans bag, you’ll need to rinse or wash the bin regularly. That’s not a huge deal, but if your goal is to minimize contact with decomposing food, it’s something to keep in mind. Small gripes overall. However, if you want to use a bag, we recommend these silicone bands that fit around the caddy and secure the bag in place so it doesn't fall as you're adding food scraps.
How we tested compost caddies
Standard bag fitting
The initial test was to see how well each caddy handled a bag. Using generic, 1.3-gallon compost bags, we secured a bag in each caddy, taking note on how easy the process was, how well the caddy secured the bag, and how the caddy looked with the bag inside it.
Scent test
To get a sense of how well each caddy contained odors, we put 15 drops of tea tree oil on a cotton pad and placed them inside each caddy, letting them sit there for an hour before returning. Testers then tried to detect the scent without opening the bin, ranking each one by odor intensity. Essential oils, as opposed to compost, were a quicker and more efficient way to test, and it provided us more precise control over the concentration of the scent in each of the bins.
Ease of use
For each caddy, we simulated the experience of taking the caddy from the kitchen to a place of disposal, making note of how easy it was to remove the bag and dispose of the contents. We timed how long it took to remove the bag, and how easy it was to do while standing up.
What we looked for in the best countertop compost bins
How well does it contain smell?
Compost itself smells earthy, but that transformation doesn’t happen on your counter. The caddy is really just an intermediary between the kitchen and the eventual composting site, and during that time, things can get a little funky. Dealing with smells was a top concern for many compost users, and unpleasant smells are a big reason why many people are reluctant to separate their kitchen scraps from the rest of their trash, which is why we wanted to look for caddies that contained smells well. This meant passively while on the counter, and in how long they have to be left open when changing out the bag. If a caddy made it easy for the user to conduct the bag removal process entirely outside the kitchen, that was also a big plus.
Is it made of high-quality materials?
We preferred stainless steel over plastic, which can degrade and trap odors over time. We wanted a caddy with a smart and sturdy build, that was easy to hold and easy to use.
Other compost caddies we tested
Bamboozle
As a standard bucket, bamboozle was fine. It has a cocoa fiber filter that keeps odors from your kitchen waste at bay, and is itself made out of a bamboo resin composite that breaks down faster in the environment than conventional plastic. However, the Epica is cheaper and made from metal, which we prefer. Bamboozle materials, while in our experience are great, can sometimes crack out of nowhere due to compounded stresses.
Exaco
This is the compost caddy you most likely recognize from a restaurant or coffee shop. It’s practical, a little flimsy, but it gets the job done. It is sort of ugly, but if you want a larger volume, this is a good choice (you might want to keep it out of sight, though.)
Blue Ginkgo
The internal bucket with the filter is an interesting design, but doesn’t really seem that necessary or make that much sense (you don’t need to strain liquid from your compost.) Still, it’s not a terrible design, but we’d recommend using a bag with this one.
Full Circle
We really liked the press-to-open design of this bin, and its high-quality metal construction. But the bag setup was too finicky, which ultimately bumped it from the top spot. However, there are a lot of other things to like about this one.
Simple Human
This was designed to be attached alongside a Simple Human trash can or recycle bin. As a standalone caddy, it lacks a handle, which we decided was a preferred design feature. However, it is made of very high-quality materials and has a removable internal bucket, which is a plus. We’d only really recommend this if you already have a Simple Human trashcan.
Compost bins we don’t recommend
The plain standard bucket functioned as a control variable. The lid has a nice, tight fit, but you really have to tug on it to get the lid back off. It contains smell well, but a complete lack of oxygen will accelerate anaerobic decomposition on your countertop, which means you’ll get a big wallop of odor to your face every time you open it to put more in. The bucket was proof positive that a more considered design for holding kitchen scraps before you dispose of them is worth it.
While securing the bag on this one was quite nice, removing it is not so seamless compared to the winner. You have to remove the lid entirely, set it aside, and then remove the bag. If done inside, this means quite a bit of time for the stink to get out, and if you do this outside, it’s a little awkward. Also, it’s made entirely of plastic.
While we normally like Oxo products, and appreciated the charcoal filter, we found using this one to be irritating. Putting the bag on was annoying and tedious, and we really had to jam the plastic pieces together to get things in place. There are just better versions of this design out there, so we don’t see a point in endorsing this one.
No carrying handle! Simple as that.