How to Compost at Home Without Spending a Dime

There's a super simple way to start composting in your backyard today without spending a dime. Below we'll tell you how to do it using stuff laying around your house — and without ticking off your neighbors.

There's also a way to compost all the things you can't do in your backyard through our Compost Club subscription service. So let's dive in.

Option 1: DIY Backyard Composting

This is the free, no-equipment-needed version. You can start today.

What to Compost

Only compost the big 3: veggies, fruits, and yard waste. There's some other stuff you can add (like egg shells and coffee grounds), but to start, this will keep it simple.

How to Collect It

Toss your veggie and fruit scraps into a container in your kitchen. You can use any trash can, painter bucket, or anything else that can hold material. No fancy charcoal filter needed, no expensive compostable liners needed. You can always rinse it out with water.

Where to Put It

In your backyard, just toss it on the ground some place where sun hits the pile, air can reach it, and you can get to it with your hose for an occasional dousing. No fancy turner needed (and besides, they don't have enough room).

How to Avoid Smells, Bugs, and Critters

No smells, bugs, or animals with the right mixture: for every 1/4 food waste, add about 3/4 yard waste. Doesn't have to be exact, but if you start to notice a smell or see bugs, that's your sign to add more yard waste. This ratio is the difference between a compost pile and a pile of rotting food.

How Often to Mix It

Mix it up often, or don't. If you want compost fast, mix things around once or twice a week. If you're not in a hurry, once a month or less is still okay. Nature knows what to do.

How to Know When It's Done

When it smells like earth, it's done. Just take a sample, put it in a container for a day, and if it smells like rich soil, it's ready. If it smells rancid, let it go longer.

That's it. Seriously. No equipment, no cost, no excuses.

What Your Backyard Pile Can't Handle

DIY backyard composting is great — but it has limits. You can't compost meat, dairy, bones, cooked food, greasy takeout containers, or compostable packaging in a backyard pile. Those materials need higher temperatures than a backyard pile can generate to break down safely.

That's where industrial composting comes in — and in the Omaha area, that means Compost Club.

Option 2: Compost Club — We'll Handle the Rest

If the idea of managing a backyard bin feels like one more thing on an already full plate, that's exactly why Hillside built the Compost Club. Compost Club is our residential composting subscription for Omaha households. Think of it like signing up for Netflix, except instead of streaming shows, you're keeping food waste out of the landfill and turning it into nutrient-dense soil.

Use Drop-off Compost Club — if you’re up for dropping off your material

You subscribe and get access to a network of drop-off points across the Greater Omaha area. Drop off your food scraps, compostable packaging, paper towels, napkins — all the stuff your backyard pile can't take. We haul it to our composting farm in Ashland, Nebraska, where it's processed at industrial temperatures and turned into rich, usable soil.

Some of that finished compost comes back to you for your own yard, garden, or houseplants. And once a year through our Compost Club Gives program, members vote to donate finished soil to nonprofit food gardens across Omaha.

Or, Curbside Compost Club will come to your house!

You choose a cart size — 35, 65, or 95 gallons — and Hillside picks it up from your curb every week. No trips. No bin management. No guilt about the banana peels sitting on the counter. And unlike backyard composting, curbside accepts meat, dairy, bones, and pet waste — the stuff most home bins can't handle. Members also get compost credits redeemable at Soil Dynamics, 20% off products year-round, and unlimited yard waste pickup with no bag tags required. Starting at $25/month, it's genuinely the lowest-friction way to compost in Omaha.

1,800+ Omaha households have already joined Compost Club. Many of our members have reduced their landfill trash from 13 gallons a week to less than two.

Why Composting Matters in Omaha

Here's a number that puts this in perspective: according to the EPA, food waste makes up about 24% of what's in our landfills — making it the single largest category of landfilled material. When food waste breaks down in the oxygen-deprived conditions of a landfill, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term.

Whether you start with a DIY pile in your backyard or join Compost Club, every pound of food waste you divert from the landfill makes a real difference.

Ready to Start?

Go the DIY route — use the steps above and start today. It costs nothing.

Go all-in with Compost Club — join here and get access to the full network. We'll handle the hard stuff.

Already a business or school? We run the Greater Omaha area's only commercial composting service too. Get a quote →

Hillside Solutions provides trash, recycling, composting, and glass recycling services to businesses, schools, and organizations across the Greater Omaha area. We also run Compost Club — a residential composting program for 1,800+ households.