What’s gone wrong?

[BellaRobbie]

OK so my bin seems to have gone wrong. I started it in July this year - had a week away shortly after I started (which seemed to impact the heat) and I had a problem with maggots for a while but that seems to have sorted itself out. It’s a bit smelly - not really terrible but a little bit of a whiff when I took the hatch off. Generally the temperature is ok usually in the green zone and I have lots of the fluffy white stuff on it when I open the lid to re-load. There was some brown leakage out of the bottom when I first started but it seems to have evened out a bit although maybe the filter looks a bit bunged up. One other thing I did was get through the bulking agent really fast (maybe I was using too much?) and I’ve replaced it with a bag from the garden centre - was this a bad decision? I always use shredded office paper and bulking agent when I put kitchen and garden waste in the bin. I have changed my shredder to one which cross cuts because the other type, in long strips, seems to get tangled into a bit heap. You can see the paper still in the bin in spite of the fact this would have been placed in the bin back in July. One last thing - I alway mix everything in a garden flexi-tub before tipping it into the bin.


Any advice on what to do? Should I leave it and hope it improves gradually or do I need to drag this stuff out and start again (really hope it’s not the latter because that will be a horrible job!

[Absofsteel]

Hi, I'm here because I have the same problem and have done pretty much the same as you. Though I have emptied the bottom half since July and used it. I can't seem to upload photos but mine is very wet. I've added a lot of wood chips as well.