Definitely on soil so that worms etc can get into the compost and and preferably in sun or part sun not complete shade.

Thank you moon-grower - as I suspected. Life's never easy is it?

I'm surprised the council didn't give you this information before you bought the composter. Ours did, with a selection of types and sizes and info so that you could choose an appropriate one.

You'll probably find this website helpful -
http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting/

id get a culture of red worms to help it get started to .

They'll arrive when conditions are right NP.

I agree Beattie and adding them if conditions are not right means they will simply die.

your right beattie . the council round here were offering the bins , the worms and the correct way of using them as there not normal lob worms in there youl find .

Keep turning it over. You can buy a liquid Bio that speeds up the process, but I've heard that pee works just as well.

Pee, even women's pee works fine. We never turn the compost in our bins, we would if it was a heap but not in a bin.

Why do you say that? Is womens pee different? haha?

Yup Myron our pee is different because of the estrogens we pee

Well I didn' know that, It's amazing what you learn. Trust women to be different from men in EVERY way, even their pee is different, haha. When I go down to the pub with my mates and say, "Did you know that womens pee is different from ours"? They'll say, "No, where did you learn that"? and I'll say, "From The Moon, on a garden web site". Hahaha.