What Can and Cannot Go Into a Commercial Composter
The yes / ask-first / never list, written for a kitchen brigade rather than an engineer.
What can you put in a commercial food waste composter?
Start with the accepted-materials list for the model. LIGHT handles softer raw and cooked food waste and small bones; HARDSTOCK also handles larger bones and hard shells. Ask us about whole husks, unusually large material and compostable packaging before the first load. Keep contaminants out — no cutlery, no gloves, no cling film, no cigarette ends.
The LIGHT and HARDSTOCK process is described in our seven-step composting guide. LIGHT accepts small bones and fish bones. The big bones and hard shell are a job for HARDSTOCK, the family with the crushing chamber.
Here are the three tiers, in the kitchen sign’s own words.
- Yes — fish, chicken, bone, prawn, oyster, rice, noodles, trim, citrus, eggshell, coffee, garden waste, fruit peels, bakery, tea bags.
- Ask first — durian, coconut, corn, napkins, compostable packaging.
- Never — plastic, film, spoon, glass, foil, ceramic, glove, cigarette, sanitiser, degreaser. Bleach, sanitiser and degreaser kill the culture.
The same list is printed as a steel sign on the home page, where a kitchen can read it above the bin. Check small-bone acceptance for your model; the big bones and hard shell are the job of the crushing chamber.
The list does not tell you how much your kitchen produces. Both the amount and the material matter when choosing a machine. It takes a week of weighing, and there is a note on how.
