So how do you get the conditions right, well you need to add about 50-70% "brown material", which is the dry, harder, absorbent materials like paper, cardboard, dead leaves, pruning's, pet bedding, like our hamster sawdust and our chicken straw. The browns are high in carbon:
The rest is made up of what we call the "greens" this is the wet, soft, green material like grass cuttings, weedings (although if you put perennial weeds like bindweed and ground elder, you will need the compost heap to reach a high temperature or they will continue to grow when the compost is added back). vegetable peelings, kitchen waste (although I only add kitchen waste to our Green Johanna because it is a sealed unit and this means the rats can't get in. The greens are high in nitrogen.
Peeing in the compost bin is also good to increase the nitrogen levels.... just don't get caught by your neighbours!
So your compost heap should be a mix of your greens and browns in thinnish layers and every now and then give it a good stir, use common sense, if its too wet and smelly add more browns and if its too dry it just won't compost, so add more greens.
At home we have two compost caddies in the kitchen, one is for all food waste (this is the one I tell hubby and kids to use, its less confusing for them) and I tear up envelopes, toilet roll holders, tissues,kitchen roll, food cardboard packaging etc.
the other bin is for things like vegetable peelings, apple cores, and all the paper, cardboard etc.
The chickens get fed the rice and pasta and if the doggies are lucky they may get a few meaty scraps.