Previous experience has shown that very effective control of fruit flies predating the kitchen compost bucket
can be easily done by using a plastic bucket with a tight-fitting lid. Ours was a white squarish poly cookie tub.
By occasionally, and very quickly, slapping the lid on and giving the bucket a good shaking, the feasting fruit flies can be sufficiently deranged with the veggie parts and sauce.
The technique is not perfect because
- Closed compost buckets become smelly
- Open compost buckets allow the flies to come and go as they please
- Opaque white buckets do not allow for fly population assessment
- Slapping on and sealing the lid quickly requires great finesse
Enter the Compact Disk tub. To repurpose it as a compost bucket,
- Cut off a bit more than half of the center hollow disk spindle
- Place the bucket with lid on the kitchen counter, upside-down
- Fill halfway with food scraps
- If a resident fruit fly population appears in the bucket, casually place a finger over the spindle hole and shake vigorously
- Empty as needed
The theory here is that as fruit flies try to escape the bucket's confines, they will fly up and out, not finding the hole through which they entered the unit. Thus, the bucket should accumulate flies over time rather than come to a steady-state equilibrium of only a portion of the resident pest population within it. The center hole in the 'top' allows enough venting that the stew does not smell.