Has anyone used something like this? I’m interested because
Thanks.
Does that include the freezer (I’m guessing yes)?
What do you put the food in when it’s time for yard/food debris pick-up?
Don’t expect it to compost
Where do you live where they don’t let you use a regular composter? What about a big pile of plant based stuff that just decays at its own rate? Sort of a no-tech composter?
Freezer, too.
Right now it goes into a compostable bag in a bin next to the kitchen trash. It leaks, smells, and attracts tiny flies.
Nope. HOA rule. We live two blocks from wetlands and they don’t want rats or bears in the development.
I recently saw a video, or possibly read something, saying these are not good. Below is the New York Times Wirecutter review from last year, which isn’t what I saw, but hits the main points I recall. They use lots of energy to dry and grind the food, meaning they don’t produce compost, but more like food ashes.
I agree about the countertop ones that are just a bucket being bad. We used to use one as just a staging place before taking it out to the big compost bin. If we forgot and let it go a few days, it wasn’t good.
We use a food scrap bin that fits in the cabinet under the sink, it is rather ingeniously designed to swing out when you open the cabinet door to put food scraps in, and when you close the door it swings back in and the lid comes down and fits firmly. We’ve had this for at least 12 years, and have never suffered from tiny flies, fruit or otherwise. It takes the 3-gallon compostable bags, which just about holds a week’s worth of scraps for us (family of 2).
As to those bags, you have to look for good ones and probably order them online. The ones you typically find in the supermarket are around 0.64 mil thick; the ones that they now put out to use as produce bags are even thinner. I found Simply Bio bags at Amazon, and they are 1 mil thick and last much better. If you double them up with one of the free composting produce bags, you get even better results.
The trouble with any 3-gallon compost bag is that it probably won’t hold anything like 2 weeks’ worth of food scraps. So you would need an airtight container (ideally somewhere like the garage) to hold these full bags until they can be collected.
Of course this really shouldn’t be your problem. You are being whipsawed between your HOA and your municipality. Has either of them offered any other solution?
How do you feel about worms?
I’ve lived with a few roommates who vermicomposted, and that worked a lot better and quicker than the desktop ones, and honestly, a lot better than most yard tumblers too. The worms process the food scraps into worm castings and eventually fertilizer.
There are some DIY options (sorry, not the easiest to use page… it’s a wiki of student projects) or commercial products and guides.
The Wirecutter author @echoreply linked to had a worm farm too, and wrote about it: How I Started a Worm Farm to Make Compost | Reviews by Wirecutter
Just be sure to walk without rhythm when you go collect the castings.
This is precisely the model that we bought. My wife and daughter have become obsessed with composting lately.
The countertop composter sat around unused for a long time precisely because we did not have a backyard composter into which to empty it. (that was the idea all along). My wife bought a rotating backyard composter an I was tasked with assembling it. Once it was in place, the countertop composter was dusted off and pressed into service. Compost goes into the countertop one and, as soon as reasonably possible, it gets taken out to the backyard composter and that composter is rotated. The countertop one is brough inside and cleaned out so it won’t get full of rancid foodstuff and smell disgusting.
The backyard composter is apparently working well. Th plan is to empty it when the weather turns warm again, use the “digested” compost in the gardens, and return the incompletely processed (and larger) portions to the (presumably washed-out) rotating composter, thus completing the first year Circle of Composter Life.
In that case, considering your restrictions, maybe bokashi composting is a good fit? From what i understand, there’s an indoor fermentation step, then you basically bury the fermented stuff that then decomposes in the soil. And some time later, you dig that up and use that soil for plants and stuff.
Bokashi: How to Compost Kitchen Scraps with Fermentation – Mother Earth News
Thanks for the ideas. In this thread, I am just seeking information on the electric countertop composters.
I chose composting as the subject of a collaboration project. I guess I was in the wrong crowd because it got almost no participation. I think it is a fascinating topic. If you have very limited space speed of composting would be your primary focus. This means a perfect balance of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and moisture content. You need to consider what the compost will be used for because you wouldn’t want feces on your veggies, but for ornamental purposes, it is fine. compostable cat litter would be a good source of carbon. If done right, composting can take place on 7 days. But this would mean your scraps should be placed in the fridge and each batch would be started at the same time, not continuously added. Regular agitation for the sake of aeration needs to be done regularly. A hand-cranked auger could easily accomplish this. carbon doesn’t need to be exact, but too much is better than too little. The compost should maintain a nice fresh earthy smell and be just damp enough so that you can squeeze a handful into a clump that will easily break apart. There is something oddly satisfying about successful composting.