Scrap log and materials inventory
A week of scraps in gallons, and a list of every material you have or can get, with when it comes and where it is kept. These two sheets size everything else.
For a first pass, both sheets are essential. The scrap week is Start here in What goes in, and the materials list tells you whether you will have enough browns for the scraps you log. The herbicide column can stay blank until Leaves, grass and yard.
One week of scraps
One row per day. Measure what goes into the kitchen container, in gallons or cups. A measuring cup is enough.
Materials inventory
One row per material you have or can get. Green means wet and nitrogen-rich; brown means dry and carbon-rich. Leave the herbicide column blank until you have asked.
How to use these sheets
- Measure the container, not the week. Fill a measuring cup or a marked container each time you empty scraps into it, and write the amount that day. Sixteen cups make a gallon.
- Write down the bad days too. A week with a dinner party or a week away is still your week. Note it in the notes column.
- Record, do not conclude. The totals show what you made this week. They do not say what you will make in winter or in a month with a garden.
- List browns with their season. Leaves come once a year; cardboard comes all year. The "when in the year" column is what shows a gap.
Tomás Reyes (a fictional person) logged 1.5 gallons in his first week: fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds with paper filters, and two tea bags. His materials list has fruit and vegetable scraps and coffee grounds from his kitchen, and fall leaves from the silver maple in his yard, stored in 9 thirty-gallon bags.
One week is one week. National averages exist (NRDC measured 3.5 pounds of discarded food per person per week in three cities, including liquids and edible food), but they measure all wasted food, not compostable scraps, and they do not forecast your household. Your log is the evidence; it will not tell you what changes with the seasons.