The 9 Best Kitchen Compost Bins in 2024

If you’re reading this article, you likely already know that composting is one of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to lessen your environmental footprint. Having a dedicated compost bin inside your home can make composting even more convenient.  Since many of the best “ingredients” for compost come from food scraps, we’ve rounded up 9 of the best kitchen compost bins.

Call them pails, caddies, or keepers — any one of these well-designed bins will make it less messy (and stinky) to collect kitchen scraps and leftovers for composting. Then you can add your scraps to a compost tumbler, a worm bin, or a traditional outdoor compost pile.

It’s time to get your hands on one of the best indoor compost bins, and get composting!

Our Top Picks

Just want an overview? Here’s a quick summary of our top 9:

A Closer Look: Best Kitchen Compost Bins

Here’s a closer look at our top 9 kitchen compost bins.

The OXO has all the best attributes of a kitchen compost bin, including a high degree of flexibility — without getting too complicated or expensive. The following reasons are why we believe the OXO is the best countertop compost bin around:

• You can choose from two sizes: 0.75 gallon or 1.5 gallons, and it comes in a few colors.
• It’s made of material fit for the job. Plastic certainly isn’t the most eco-friendly (or durable) choice for all situations, but it makes good sense for a compost pail. More durable materials each have their advantages, but at the end of the day, a plastic bin won’t break like ceramic, rust like stainless steel, mold like silicone, or eventually start to degrade like bamboo. 
• It has a removable internal bucket. This makes the OXO easier to clean (you can just run the inside container through the dishwasher), and compostable bags fit better (if you choose to use them at all).
• It’s affordable. Let’s face it: not everyone wants to spend more than 30 bucks on something that’s primarily designed to hold decomposing vegetables.

If you’re new to kitchen compost bins, this easy-peasy option from Made by Design is a good choice. A slim, simple design, flip-top lid, carbon insert, and removable dishwasher-safe pail all combine to make a straightforward and budget-friendly countertop compost bin.

The Full Circle Kitchen Compost Collector is a little different: instead of relying on carbon filters to prevent odors, it uses a vented bottom to circulate fresh air. According to reviewers, this works well — but it also means you absolutely need to use compostable bags with this bin, to avoid any leaks.

There’s a reason stainless steel compost pails are so common: they’re tough, simple to use, clean, and tote around. Plus they’re pretty and shiny! 

The Endurance Compost Pail comes in 3 sizes, from a half gallon to 1.5 gallons, so you can choose exactly which size works best for you. We also found this stainless steel model to be one of the most consistently highly rated compost bins on the market. 

We like the simplicity of this classic compost bin: just a nice ceramic crock that comes in a variety of colors, and includes a carbon filter to keep odors at bay. 

A couple caveats: reviewers really did not like the handle, which apparently slips off at inopportune moments. Also, because it is made out of ceramic, the Norpro Compost Keeper is breakable, so be careful with wet hands or soapy sinks. 

All of our best countertop compost bins are eco-friendly by their very nature, as they make composting easier and more convenient. But the Bamboozle Stationary Composter takes it one step further, since the bin itself is (eventually) biodegradable. 

Made from sustainable bamboo fibers, this stylish bin comes in 2 colors, and features an easy on and off lid with aeration holes and a carbon filter.

Since the Polder Kitchen Composter is made of flexible silicone, it’s decidedly less messy to empty than a rigid bin, and easier to clean. 

Users love that once you remove the silicone container from the stainless steel frame, it’s easier to get all the contents out, and then pop in the dishwasher to clean— all without getting any ooky kitchen scrap residue on your hands.

This handy little food waste caddy is super flexible. You can either store it on top of your kitchen counter, or you can mount it inside a cabinet door, on the side of a wall, or anyplace else you’d like. When it’s time to empty the caddy, simply remove it from the mount and use the handle to carry it outside.

If you need a little more room for your kitchen scraps, this compost caddy may be the one for you. The MAZE Compost Caddy combines a whopping 2.4 gallon capacity with a surprisingly slim profile, which makes it perfect for use in a cabinet, cupboard, pantry, or under the kitchen sink.

It also features an extra-wide opening, perfect for emptying kitchen scraps off of a cutting board, from a food processor, juicer, etc. Best of all, even though the caddy holds more than average, it’s also one of the more affordable options on our list!

How to Choose the Kitchen Compost Bin That’s Right for You

Before you narrow in on a kitchen compost pail, here are the top 3 things to consider.

Our Process

For this guide on best kitchen compost bins, our team spent 6 hours researching the most popular options from over 35 brands and manufacturers big and small. We then read about fifty user reviews (both positive and negative) to discover what shoppers thought about each kitchen compost bin. After comparing this data, we narrowed our list down to the top 9 kitchen compost bins on the market. You can count on this research to guide you to a mindful purchasing decision.

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