Eco-Friendly Living: Compost Bins, Domesticated

Blisstree is all for composting: It’s a great way to reduce waste, nurture your garden, and school the kids. (Ever met a five-year-old who didn’t like worms?) But when it comes to storing rotten food in or near the house, we prefer to keep things under good-looking, odor-free wraps. So whether you’re transferring your slop to a garden or just being ecologically mindful indoors, here are five comely compost containers that we would let live in our kitchens.

Ceramic Compost Pail from Williams Sonoma

This low-profile bucket is small (one gallon) and keeps compost from smelling funky with replaceable charcoal filters. Its ceramic material and white finish definitely up a kitchen’s chic-quotient. Just don’t mistake it for the cookie jar. ($32)

Bamboo Compost Pail from RSVP

This small and handsome pail – made of environmentally sustainable bamboo – uses charcoal filters to stave off smells. ($38.95 at amazon.com)

Honeypot Compost Crock from Plow & Hearth

These cute crocks could trick even Winnie the Pooh into composting. They hold slightly less than a gallon, and require compost bags and filters. ($29.95)

All Seasons Indoor Composter Kit from scdprobiotics.com

While not super-glam, this starter kit includes a heavy-duty black pail and Bokashi, a material used for intensive composting. Its bucket has a tap for draining excess liquid, which can be poured down the kitchen sink, or diluted with water and used as plant food. ($65.99 at amazon.com)

Pro XE Compost Bin from naturemill.com

The Lamborghini of compost bins, this is the biggest, baddest machine we found. It can actually live indoors or out (it just needs to be plugged into a standard outlet), and it does all your dirty work by moving compost between its chambers. ($399)