Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Feed Link: https://www.engadget.com/
---

Title: The best way to compost your food scraps

Date: Thu, 01 May 2025 16:01:26 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/ho...

Composting was a big ΓÇö and daily ΓÇö part of my life for five years when I
lived off-grid. Granted, we were composting more than just food, but I
learned a lot about what goes into making a healthy compost pile. Mostly,
itΓÇÖs a lot of work ΓÇö and now that I live in a city, I donΓÇÖt do it
myself. To be clear, I still believe in composting, especially when you
consider that each person in the US throws away an estimated 200 pounds of
food per year. Food waste in landfills does bad stuff, like releasing methane
and contributing to climate change. In compost, old food does good stuff,
like improving the soil and acting as a carbon sink.

Now that more municipal curbside composting programs exist, millions of
people have a dead simple way to deal with food scraps. But if you, like me,
live where city-wide compost pickup isnΓÇÖt yet a thing, you have two
options: compost at home, with or without a machine to help out, or do what I
do and pay someone to compost for you..

How to compost at home

ItΓÇÖs tempting to think of composting as building a holder, throwing in food
and coming back a few weeks later to something you can toss in your garden,
but the reality requires much more time, space and effort. For me, the
toughest part of composting was the consistency it required. At least a few
times per week, any active compost pile needs tending, including adding to
it, turning it, watering it in dry climates or shielding it from excess rain.
In addition to time, home composting requires the space and materials to
build the bins. YouΓÇÖll also need a regular source of ΓÇ£brownΓÇ¥ or carbon-
rich materials like dried leaves, untreated paper, cardboard, sawdust or wood
chips.

Plenty of people (with more knowledge than I) have put together how-tos on
the subject. I followed The Mini Farming Guide to Composting, but these
online guides will also serve you well:

EPA: Offers a high-level overview of the process and includes a handy chart
with examples of green and brown materials.

ILSR: A more in-depth guide, complete with illustrations and the reasoning
behind each step.

NMSU: A science-rich reference with multiple methods and troubleshooting
suggestions.

Joe Gardener: A multi-page, highly detailed PDF from Joe LampΓÇÖl, the host
of PBS and DIY Network gardening shows.

Each source gives the same basic advice: build your bin, collect your food
scraps, stockpile brown materials, maintain your ratios, monitor and amend
moisture and aeration levels, then let a full heap finish for six to eight
weeks (so yes, you generally need two piles).

As you can see, composting correctly isnΓÇÖt as easy as chucking scraps into
a bin and letting time handle the rest. Of course, if the process appeals to
you (and it is pretty fascinating) thatΓÇÖs not a drawback. Gardeners in
particular, who are out in the yard anyway, make excellent candidates for
keeping up healthy piles ΓÇö not to mention, they also have the most use for
the finished product. People without yards, however, are out of luck (unless
theyΓÇÖre comfortable hosting an indoor worm farm).

Photo by Amy Skorheim / Engadget Kitchen composting machines

Calling them ΓÇ£compostersΓÇ¥ is a misnomer, since these devices donΓÇÖt
actually create compost ΓÇô that requires microbial processes that take
weeks. Instead, these appliances chop and dehydrate food, creating an odor-
free material thatΓÇÖs substantially smaller in volume than what went in. You
can even include meat and dairy ΓÇô an advantage over home compost piles in
which animal products are generally not recommended. As for what comes out,
it can be added to your backyard pile, spread in your garden, added to
houseplants or thrown in the green bin or trash ΓÇô where it will take up
less room and wonΓÇÖt stink anything up.

I haven't tested any of these devices, but after researching from the
perspective of a fairly informed composter, hereΓÇÖs what I see as the pros
and cons of a few of the more popular devices on the market.

Mill ($40 to $65 per month with USPS pickups, $30 - $50 per month without
pickups)

I like that Mill offers a solution for the substance it produces and that
itΓÇÖs large enough to hold the scraps an average family might generate over
the course of a few weeks. Instead of buying the machine outright, you sign
up for a subscription, which includes the Mill bin and USPS pickup for the
ΓÇ£groundsΓÇ¥ it creates. Add food throughout the day and the dehydration and
mixing cycles run automatically each night. …Once it's full, you empty the
contents into a prepaid box and ship it to MillΓÇÖs facility in Washington
where the grounds are turned into food for chickens.

You can also keep the grounds, feeding them to your own backyard chickens,
adding them to a compost bin or sprinkling them (sparingly) in your yard
where water will begin the actual composting process. If you go that route,
youΓÇÖll pay $30 or $50 per month, depending whether you pay annually or
monthly for the bin itself. For the Mill machine plus pickup for the grounds,
youΓÇÖll pay an extra $10 per month on the annual plan or $15 each month.

Lomi ($828)

Lomi also chops and dehydrates your scraps. The unit is smaller than the
Mill, so youΓÇÖll likely have to empty it every few days. It offers three
modes, one of which, Grow Mode, uses small capsules of probiotics called Lomi
Pods to create ΓÇ£plant foodΓÇ¥ in about 20 hours. Lomi suggests mixing the
results with regular soil at a ratio of one to ten.

If you have a yard, itΓÇÖs easy enough to add a little here and there to
maintain the ratio, and if youΓÇÖre an apartment dweller with houseplants you
can mix small amounts into the soil. But the end product should only be used
sparingly, like a fertilizer, so youΓÇÖll probably need to do something else
with the excess. Lomi suggests adding the excess to your compost, dropping it
into your green bin if your city provides curbside compost pickup or throwing
it in the trash where it will take up less space and wonΓÇÖt smell.

Reencle ($499)

Reencle is larger like the Mill bin, and involves microorganisms in the
process like Lomi. You can buy it outright or rent it for $30 per month, but
that doesnΓÇÖt include pickup for the results. I like that Reencle is, in
essence, a living pile of fermentation, using low heat, grinders and a
regenerating bacterial population to break down your food scraps.

Adding scraps daily ΓÇ£feedsΓÇ¥ the pile, and when itΓÇÖs full, youΓÇÖre only
supposed to remove about half of whatΓÇÖs in there, leaving the rest to breed
more Bacilli. Again, the material works as a plant food or fertilizer, not
like standard compost. Reencle recommends a byproduct-to-soil ratio of one
part to four, and that you let the mixture sit for five days before adding to
your monsteras and gardens.

Photo by Amy Skorheim / Engadget Why you should consider a composting service


DIY home composting is a lot of work. Countertop machines are expensive and,
from what users say, noisy and sometimes unreliable. Both methods leave you
to figure out what to do with the byproduct, whether itΓÇÖs the finished
compost from your bins or the dehydrated proto-compost from the appliances.
ThatΓÇÖs great for gardeners ΓÇö compost makes plants happy. Everyone else
may find themselves stuck with a delightful pile of black gold and nowhere to
put it.

Home composting also doesnΓÇÖt let you take advantage of compostable
dishware, bags and to-go items. Companies like Matter Compostables make cups,
plates and utensils that compost down in about a year at commercial
composting facilities (but not all of them will break down in home piles).
That decomposition time frame sure beats the multiple centuries it takes for
a plastic fork to degrade. Matter even makes compostable kitchen trash bags,
which I found to be surprisingly strong replacements for plastic.

In cities where municipal composting exists, many restaurants are beginning
to offer compostable to-go containers. That not only drastically reduces
plastic use, people can also toss unwanted leftovers and the box it came in
into the bin. Of course, not all of us live in cities with municipal
composting services (I donΓÇÖt). Which is why I pay for a local service and I
recommend it.

Most subscription-based compost pick-up services work the same way: for a
monthly fee, they provide you with a bucket and lid. You fill the bucket with
leftovers and set it on your front porch/steps/stoop on pickup day. They
collect your bucket, leaving you a fresh one on a weekly, bi-weekly or
monthly basis. Scraps are then composted on a large scale and the results are
sold to local farms or people in the community.

Each service has different rules about what you can add, but most let you
throw all food and food-related items in the bucket (including meat, bones,
dairy and fruit pits). You can also usually include coffee filters, pizza
boxes, houseplants, BPI-certified compostable plastics and paper towels
(without cleaning products on them). All services ask that you remove produce
stickers and pull the staples from your teabags.

I have our pickup scheduled for every other Tuesday. Does two weeksΓÇÖ worth
of food in a bucket stink? It does. To help with that, we keep our bucket
outside with the lid firmly on. I keep a canister on the countertop to fill
with scraps throughout the day and empty it into the bucket when the canister
is full or starts to smell. I also keep old food in the fridge until right
before collection day.

Of course, these services arenΓÇÖt available everywhere, and they cost $20 to
$40 per month, so itΓÇÖs not a universal solution. I pay $22 for a twice
monthly pickup and I look at the cost in terms of time: I would spend more
than two hours a month maintaining a compost pile, so if I value my labor at
$12 per hour, which is my stateΓÇÖs minimum wage, the cost is worth it.

I like the little perks too, like getting a ΓÇ£freeΓÇ¥ bag of compost twice
per year and having a place to drop off our yearly batch of jack-o-lanterns
once the faces start caving in. The service I use is also currently working
on opening a new composting facility that will allow it to take in more food
scraps from restaurants and even create a community space. ThatΓÇÖs a much
better end game for my avocado pit than being sealed up for eternity in a
landfill.

A sampling of composting services in the largest US markets

Modern tech is making it easier for these services to pop up in more cities.
Sign-up is done online and most payments are automatic. My driver told me
they use the Stop Suite app to optimize their pickup routes, send out text
reminders and handle other customer service functions. Composting may be old
as dirt, but the way weΓÇÖre creating it is brand new.

Of the 20 largest metro areas in the US, nine have or will have municipally-
run compost collection programs. I spent some time in Seattle, where most
homes had three collection bins: trash, recycling and compost. ThatΓÇÖs by
far the easiest and cheapest way to do it. But if you donΓÇÖt live in one of
those nine locales with city-run services ΓÇö youΓÇÖll have to go the paid
route. HereΓÇÖs a list of the community composting services available in 11
major metro areas:

New Jersey: Garden State Composting, Neighborhood Compost

Chicago: WasteNot Compost, The Urban Canopy, Collective Resource Compost

Dallas: Recycle Revolution

Houston: Moonshot Compost, Zero Waste Houston

Washington DC: Compost Crew, Veteran Compost

Philadelphia: Mother Compost, Circle Compost, Bennett Compost

Atlanta: Awesome Possum Composting, Compost Now

Miami: Compost for Life, Renuable

Phoenix: R.City

Detroit: Midtown Composting, Scrap Soils

Tampa: Suncoast Compost

Albuquerque (the service I use): Little Green Bucket

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/ho...
140047133.html?src=rss

---
VRSS v2.1.180528