Companies that mislead people who want to do the right thing really push my buttons. There are so many -- Ridwell, Terracycle, Trashie, and others. That pisses me off.
I hear you and there are a lot of problems with making it *easier* for people to produce waste by alleviating the guilt associated with it. But I do think that Ridwell and Trashie, at least, and Lomi to some extent, are trying to do the right thing (Terracycle I have written off). The whole system is completely broken, we all consume too much, and these companies are trying to figure out how to make less of the stuff go (at least directly) to the landfill.
I have a Lomi, which I got during COVID when NYC stopped picking up food scraps. I used it quite a bunch, and sometimes again with items that my community garden couldn't accept once I started taking my scraps there. It made me feel better than throwing out the scrapings from our plates and meat and oils. For a while after that I paid a great organization, Groundcycle, to pick up my scraps. They work with a commercial composter on a farm upstate, that uses the compost on its grounds. But I really can't afford it, and now just send it to the city, which doesn't even make compost out of our scraps but burns it for energy (womp, womp). I think about separating my scraps so I could at least send the usable material to my community garden to actually be composted, but I share a household with two men (my husband and almost 19 year old), who would be annoyed by the separation and probably do it wrong often, so I throw up my hands, at least for now.
Greenwashing is exhausting and terrible and for my work I actually try to sift through and decode it for my clients. It's a constant battle to keep up with the companies that are claiming they're doing the right thing and I rely on experts -- like you! -- to help me figure it out.
I do think your famous quote of "a million people doing zero waste imperfectly" applies here, as not everyone who even has a garden will want to compost, or make their own rags out of old t-shirts, or their own veggie broth from veggie scraps. If those people are putting their scraps into a Lomi or a Mill and dehydrating it and sending less to the landfill, isn't it better? I get that there's a problem that the companies are implying that their products "make compost," and there are plenty of confused people in the Lomi users FB group trying to figure out why there's mold on their soil after they apply what comes out of their machine, who get pretty annoyed when they learn the real deal. But overall, I'd rather have companies working to help fix the problem than not.
From experience here. I have a cottage that is used 4 months a year. I tried regular composting for 20 years and the bins never turned to compost and amusingly attracted bees and snakes. And our trash is only picked up every other week. Lomi has been perfect for me. Maybe not for everyone…but it is perfect for my situation.
I'm glad it's working well for you. I can see the benefits in some situations. It's the claims that get me. Some of these companies make wild claims! Thank you for sharing your experience with Lomi.
Thank you. This is well researched. I was astounded when these counter top machines were introduced that promised garden ready compost in 24 hours. I didn’t do as much research as you, but quickly learned they were just dehydrators. Dehydrators cost a lot less and do the same job.
Thanks for the info! I actually bought a Reencle when it was in the crowd funding stage and I was moving to an apartment high rise. It supposedly came with some sort of microbe material to start with and it did grind up the food and dehydrate it but I never thought about the dehydration part until this article. I did try to let the food dirt sit for a few weeks and then add it to my houseplant soil but those plants ended up with bugs and severe problems. I ended up giving the machine to someone else because I found that other than avocado skins and egg shells, I rarely had any scraps to put in it and it takes up space I didn’t have. I had read a blog elsewhere about saving veggie scraps in the freezer to use for stock, so I do that now, and I’ve just gotten better about only buying what I need so o don’t remember the last time I threw out bad food. I now have moved to a city that has a public compost bin at their city rec centers so I may start dumping my avo skins, strawberry tops, and egg shells there.
Yes! I only discovered the composting bin after searching for public recycling bins since the old apartment building I just moved to recently doesn’t have a service on site, despite new city ordinances in Colorado requiring it.
I compost, and have for years. I have mildly lusted after one of these countertop composters, but would never spend that much money for something I can do for free, albeit with a little more time and effort. Thank you for the education. I’ve given up lusting. Lately, I’ve been soaking my kitchen scraps in buckets and pouring that onto my plants in lieu of using fertilizer. It works great. Also free.
I use a Lomi because a composting bin would attract rats and mice; I live in a subdivision. I use the resultant dirt for my lawn and some in my garden. I do my best to use up veggies I have on hand to keep the food waste to a minimum.
Thank you so much for writing this: These things drive me bananas! In addition to the energy/carbon that they need to run, there's also the embodied carbon of the machines themselves, which as you point out will eventually end up in the landfill.
My great aunt had a solution to food scraps in a city apartment with a teeny tiny garden. She was very good at not wasting much in the first place, but for the scraps she did have, she made a smoothie out of the veggies and water and poured it directly onto her garden beds. People saying they have had trouble composting might also look into the bokashi method.
I have tried bokashi twice in my apartment, but it did not work for me. Fortunately, the apartment complex has composting bins picked up by the city now. My next concern is how few people understand what can be composted. The bins have several plastic trash bags of whatever inside that other residents have put in. Are people in general actually that ignorant of what can be composted?
One needs to be so careful today as companies mislead and outright lie just to make a buck. I really despise this type of greenwashing. I was curious as to what you thought about garbage disposals? would they be a form composting or are they more similar to landfills? thanks.
I totally unrelated question - what are your thought about conserving water especially in the summer? I'm thinking about watering the grass and washing your car every weekend - that kind of thing. I leave in an area that has been low in rain yet people carry on as if it is no big deal. Have you posted about that before? if so, could you please send a link. thanks
Another gadget seldom fixes the issue. So many people who live in apartment buildings with no access to gardens and who want to do the right thing could see these as an option.
Such a waste of funds and precious energy. I love your call to ‘Shop at Home’ - we call it Eat the Fridge - having a good plan makes the world of difference. Pre-cycling and having a menu plan that factors in left overs works.
Buying organic and scrubbing instead of peeling.
I look forward to following your tips links - I bet they are things my grandma did!
Of course there is a learning curve for the consumers. Let's chat about the "Elephant in the room" or 'depackaging' because most (even the imbeciles) understand plastic isn't biodegradable and none of corporate wants to pay for that most important action.
However, feeding animals is still above composting in the EPA hierarchy. And joining food producers with animal owners using an app like CAREit .com can be very beneficial, esp with hyper local distances.
I'm well over 250Klbs in >25 years with the last 50K diversions recorded on the app in the last 2 years.
Our critters get the micro nutrients from whole foods, produce more, and the producers get concierge nutrient managers. Together we prevent microplastics going into the waste slurry used for soil amendments and livestock base kibble.
The worst thing these fakers can do is discouraging the larger restaurants using the real composters like the Aloha Steak restaurant in Ventura does. They are working with Agromin to compost on site, thus reducing 95% of the hauling weight from water and C02 piped up into the air. CA's SB1383 is really motivating all levels with threats of fines.
All of this. A company sent me theirs. I have been trying it to see what exactly the advantage might be. I have yet to see one. The only thing I can think is that if people are squeamish about food waste, this makes that food waste more palatable before putting it on a compost pile. Maybe it is less likely to attract rodents? I don’t know. But it certainly isn’t finished compost. And I would never put it in my garden! And that’s what the company says I should do. It isn’t even a Band-Aid on the problem. It basically creates another problem.
People think that composting happens automatically. But not so. Composting is different from rotting. Rotting is anaerobic. It will stink.Composting needs air. Done right, it has very little odor. My compost has a hard time because it is never wet enough, and I don't remember to turn it. And I have a lot of oak leaves in there which are pretty hard to break down. I still have 2-3 year old leaves and sticks. Thank you for the "breakdown" on countertop composters!
When I lived in apartments, a small vermicomposter was a fine solution for food scraps. I just use the resulting compost for my house plants. Now that I have a yard, outdoor composting has never worked for me, so I have a bokashi system that breaks the scraps down before I add them to my vermicomposter. These don’t have seemingly endless money for ads, but there’s no subscription fee for inputs, no extra electricity, and usable compost at the end of the process.
I really appreciate our original FoodCycler. Our household has a mould sensitive individual and compost was always a challenge. I felt so guilty when my compost attempts made my loved one seriously ill. I have no illusions about the "composting" aspect, but I really do appreciate the dehydrate and grind. In winter we collect the finished "compost" in a 5 gallon bucket ( or two) and dump it into the regular composter in spring when we thaw out. Its great for our family of 5.
Companies that mislead people who want to do the right thing really push my buttons. There are so many -- Ridwell, Terracycle, Trashie, and others. That pisses me off.
Oh me too. The greenwashing requires so much research to untangle.
I hear you and there are a lot of problems with making it *easier* for people to produce waste by alleviating the guilt associated with it. But I do think that Ridwell and Trashie, at least, and Lomi to some extent, are trying to do the right thing (Terracycle I have written off). The whole system is completely broken, we all consume too much, and these companies are trying to figure out how to make less of the stuff go (at least directly) to the landfill.
I have a Lomi, which I got during COVID when NYC stopped picking up food scraps. I used it quite a bunch, and sometimes again with items that my community garden couldn't accept once I started taking my scraps there. It made me feel better than throwing out the scrapings from our plates and meat and oils. For a while after that I paid a great organization, Groundcycle, to pick up my scraps. They work with a commercial composter on a farm upstate, that uses the compost on its grounds. But I really can't afford it, and now just send it to the city, which doesn't even make compost out of our scraps but burns it for energy (womp, womp). I think about separating my scraps so I could at least send the usable material to my community garden to actually be composted, but I share a household with two men (my husband and almost 19 year old), who would be annoyed by the separation and probably do it wrong often, so I throw up my hands, at least for now.
Greenwashing is exhausting and terrible and for my work I actually try to sift through and decode it for my clients. It's a constant battle to keep up with the companies that are claiming they're doing the right thing and I rely on experts -- like you! -- to help me figure it out.
I do think your famous quote of "a million people doing zero waste imperfectly" applies here, as not everyone who even has a garden will want to compost, or make their own rags out of old t-shirts, or their own veggie broth from veggie scraps. If those people are putting their scraps into a Lomi or a Mill and dehydrating it and sending less to the landfill, isn't it better? I get that there's a problem that the companies are implying that their products "make compost," and there are plenty of confused people in the Lomi users FB group trying to figure out why there's mold on their soil after they apply what comes out of their machine, who get pretty annoyed when they learn the real deal. But overall, I'd rather have companies working to help fix the problem than not.
Do you dislike Ridwell and Terracyle because they aren't actually recycling what they collect or because it leads to people wishcycling?
From experience here. I have a cottage that is used 4 months a year. I tried regular composting for 20 years and the bins never turned to compost and amusingly attracted bees and snakes. And our trash is only picked up every other week. Lomi has been perfect for me. Maybe not for everyone…but it is perfect for my situation.
I'm glad it's working well for you. I can see the benefits in some situations. It's the claims that get me. Some of these companies make wild claims! Thank you for sharing your experience with Lomi.
Likewise. This doesn’t attract rats like the compost does
Preach it! Thank you!
Thanks for reading!
Thank you. This is well researched. I was astounded when these counter top machines were introduced that promised garden ready compost in 24 hours. I didn’t do as much research as you, but quickly learned they were just dehydrators. Dehydrators cost a lot less and do the same job.
Thank you for reading. When these appliances first came out, that claim also had me scratching my head.
Thanks for the info! I actually bought a Reencle when it was in the crowd funding stage and I was moving to an apartment high rise. It supposedly came with some sort of microbe material to start with and it did grind up the food and dehydrate it but I never thought about the dehydration part until this article. I did try to let the food dirt sit for a few weeks and then add it to my houseplant soil but those plants ended up with bugs and severe problems. I ended up giving the machine to someone else because I found that other than avocado skins and egg shells, I rarely had any scraps to put in it and it takes up space I didn’t have. I had read a blog elsewhere about saving veggie scraps in the freezer to use for stock, so I do that now, and I’ve just gotten better about only buying what I need so o don’t remember the last time I threw out bad food. I now have moved to a city that has a public compost bin at their city rec centers so I may start dumping my avo skins, strawberry tops, and egg shells there.
Thank you for sharing your experience with Reencle!
Veggie scraps make very good—and free—broth! Every city needs public compost bins. That would solve so many problems.
Yes! I only discovered the composting bin after searching for public recycling bins since the old apartment building I just moved to recently doesn’t have a service on site, despite new city ordinances in Colorado requiring it.
I compost, and have for years. I have mildly lusted after one of these countertop composters, but would never spend that much money for something I can do for free, albeit with a little more time and effort. Thank you for the education. I’ve given up lusting. Lately, I’ve been soaking my kitchen scraps in buckets and pouring that onto my plants in lieu of using fertilizer. It works great. Also free.
I use a Lomi because a composting bin would attract rats and mice; I live in a subdivision. I use the resultant dirt for my lawn and some in my garden. I do my best to use up veggies I have on hand to keep the food waste to a minimum.
Same.
Thank you so much for writing this: These things drive me bananas! In addition to the energy/carbon that they need to run, there's also the embodied carbon of the machines themselves, which as you point out will eventually end up in the landfill.
My great aunt had a solution to food scraps in a city apartment with a teeny tiny garden. She was very good at not wasting much in the first place, but for the scraps she did have, she made a smoothie out of the veggies and water and poured it directly onto her garden beds. People saying they have had trouble composting might also look into the bokashi method.
I have tried bokashi twice in my apartment, but it did not work for me. Fortunately, the apartment complex has composting bins picked up by the city now. My next concern is how few people understand what can be composted. The bins have several plastic trash bags of whatever inside that other residents have put in. Are people in general actually that ignorant of what can be composted?
I had a Lomi for a while (before it broke). I now compost with a turning barrel system and it’s infinitely better for all the reasons you mentioned.
One needs to be so careful today as companies mislead and outright lie just to make a buck. I really despise this type of greenwashing. I was curious as to what you thought about garbage disposals? would they be a form composting or are they more similar to landfills? thanks.
I totally unrelated question - what are your thought about conserving water especially in the summer? I'm thinking about watering the grass and washing your car every weekend - that kind of thing. I leave in an area that has been low in rain yet people carry on as if it is no big deal. Have you posted about that before? if so, could you please send a link. thanks
Another gadget seldom fixes the issue. So many people who live in apartment buildings with no access to gardens and who want to do the right thing could see these as an option.
Such a waste of funds and precious energy. I love your call to ‘Shop at Home’ - we call it Eat the Fridge - having a good plan makes the world of difference. Pre-cycling and having a menu plan that factors in left overs works.
Buying organic and scrubbing instead of peeling.
I look forward to following your tips links - I bet they are things my grandma did!
Yes! This!
Of course there is a learning curve for the consumers. Let's chat about the "Elephant in the room" or 'depackaging' because most (even the imbeciles) understand plastic isn't biodegradable and none of corporate wants to pay for that most important action.
However, feeding animals is still above composting in the EPA hierarchy. And joining food producers with animal owners using an app like CAREit .com can be very beneficial, esp with hyper local distances.
I'm well over 250Klbs in >25 years with the last 50K diversions recorded on the app in the last 2 years.
Our critters get the micro nutrients from whole foods, produce more, and the producers get concierge nutrient managers. Together we prevent microplastics going into the waste slurry used for soil amendments and livestock base kibble.
Check out the Chef/Farmer relationship on https://www.forktopork .com/
Note: the .com section needs to be activated.
The worst thing these fakers can do is discouraging the larger restaurants using the real composters like the Aloha Steak restaurant in Ventura does. They are working with Agromin to compost on site, thus reducing 95% of the hauling weight from water and C02 piped up into the air. CA's SB1383 is really motivating all levels with threats of fines.
All of this. A company sent me theirs. I have been trying it to see what exactly the advantage might be. I have yet to see one. The only thing I can think is that if people are squeamish about food waste, this makes that food waste more palatable before putting it on a compost pile. Maybe it is less likely to attract rodents? I don’t know. But it certainly isn’t finished compost. And I would never put it in my garden! And that’s what the company says I should do. It isn’t even a Band-Aid on the problem. It basically creates another problem.
People think that composting happens automatically. But not so. Composting is different from rotting. Rotting is anaerobic. It will stink.Composting needs air. Done right, it has very little odor. My compost has a hard time because it is never wet enough, and I don't remember to turn it. And I have a lot of oak leaves in there which are pretty hard to break down. I still have 2-3 year old leaves and sticks. Thank you for the "breakdown" on countertop composters!
When I lived in apartments, a small vermicomposter was a fine solution for food scraps. I just use the resulting compost for my house plants. Now that I have a yard, outdoor composting has never worked for me, so I have a bokashi system that breaks the scraps down before I add them to my vermicomposter. These don’t have seemingly endless money for ads, but there’s no subscription fee for inputs, no extra electricity, and usable compost at the end of the process.
I really appreciate our original FoodCycler. Our household has a mould sensitive individual and compost was always a challenge. I felt so guilty when my compost attempts made my loved one seriously ill. I have no illusions about the "composting" aspect, but I really do appreciate the dehydrate and grind. In winter we collect the finished "compost" in a 5 gallon bucket ( or two) and dump it into the regular composter in spring when we thaw out. Its great for our family of 5.