Make a Compost Bin from Shipping Pallets!

Remember my DIY paver stone patio and walkway project from the summer? Well, those paver stones came to us stacked on (what else?) wood shipping pallets … ‘lotsodem. For a couple months, those pallets sat out behind our garage while I mulled over what to do with them. Neighborhood bonfire? Wild turkey shelter (yes, we have dozens of wild turkeys around)? Skate ramp (wait, I don’t skateboard)? 

Then I stumbled on this post by John over at Young House Love and thought “Hey, I know! I’ll do exactly the same thing he did!” So I did:

I started by unwrapping my new miter saw and cordless drill that I got from Amazon.com’s Home Improvement store; actually, this was the best part of the whole project. 

Since this was going to be a simple box, I didn’t really plan it out or measure; I just found a flat patch of dirt next to the driveway (sort of behind the garage), and stood the pallets on end to get a feel for how they’d go together.

Next, I trimmed a few of the edges off and cut one pallet in half to make the front of the box (so I don’t have to hoist yard junk and leaves quite as high when dumping them in). 

Then I just screwed the pieces together; for this I tried out a pair of Ansell ProjeX medium duty gloves I was sent for review. I’m a big fan of protecting my fingers, and only recently discovered that a good pair of dextrous work gloves really makes a difference (I always just used those one-size-fits-all yard gloves for everything). The Ansells felt really solid and well-constructed, and I especially like the little plastic knuckle guards on the back (even though it looks a little silly).
(Note: I wasn’t paid for this reviewing these, just got a sample pair of gloves to try out).

Here’s the box nearly complete, sitting on the driveway:

And here’s the finished ‘product’ (if you can call it that):

Right now we’re just using this for yard waste since we don’t do a whole lot of food composting. It’s not perfect (it’ll probably fill up pretty quickly), but it’s better than what we were doing before, which was dumping leaves and clippings in a pile under the lilac hedge. Plus, if and when it does fill up, we can easily tear it down and have that neighborhood bonfire I was talking about!

A nice, composty-smelling bonfire. Mmm ….