Generally, you want to be very careful with animal products. Being that cheese is a dairy product, that counts. Cheese is high in fat and protein and tends to rot before it can be composted. This leads to a stinky compost heap, more anaerobic decomposition, and…pests like mice and rats.
For these reasons, we recommend against putting cheese in your compost and if you are going to do it, do it in small amounts. That said, we’ll give you a few recommendations for adding cheese to your compost, but do so very carefully and watch for pests and smells.
How to Compost Cheese
- Size Matters – Use a larger compost bin for products like cheese. Larger compost heaps tend to run warmer, killing any pathogens that may result from the cheese decomposing.
- Bury Your Dairy – Put your cheese in the middle of the compost heap (at least 18 inches) with already decomposing material and a lot of brown material.
- What Can Brown Do For You – Mix your cheese with a lot of brown material. This helps to provide structure and providing oxygen. It also helps to soak up some of the leachates that result.
- Be Careful of the Water – Products like cheese tend to create a liquid called leachate. You don’t want that in your water.
- Break It Up Into Small Pieces – This aids in decomposition.
- Turn Your Pile Regularly – This keeps it aerated and reduces the chances of anaerobic decomposition.
- Wear Gloves – This doesn’t really do anything for the compost but keeps you safe. Animal products often have or produce parasites and bacteria that you don’t want on your hands.
Some of this advice is our normal advice of turning your compost pile regularly and breaking it up into small pieces. Others are very specific about composting cheese and why you want to do it very carefully.
Can I Compost Cheese?
Technically the answer is yes when you’re asking “can you put cheese in compost”, with a lot of caution. If you are composting at home, there are so many other good materials to compost that we put it into the no category.