The Power of Indoor Compost

Dominic writes "Last week, a certain Sharp kitchen composter was the talk of the internet. But sadly, it used 300W of power to run! Not quite the perfect ideal of nature-friendlyness a composter ought to be. This week, Treehugger has a better model up, The Naturemill, which is actually available in North America, and only uses 4W of power. Best of all, it can still handle enough food waste for a family of 5. So you can get your compost on without all the hastle of a pile. And without the electric bills."

Comments

Are people really so lazy?

[Claire-plus-plus]

What is society coming to when people are too lazy to take their scraps outside to compost them?

Re:Are people really so lazy?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in an apartment. Indoor composting is the only way I could do it.

Re:Are people really so lazy?

[M1FCJ]

I live in an apatment and don't have a garden, you insensitive clod!

Re:Are people really so lazy?

[Scott7477]

For a compost heap to function properly it has to be quite large: "A rectangular pile 2 to 5 feet wide, 5 to 10 feet long and 2 to 4 feet high is adequate for most households. If space is not available, a single, tall pile can be used. Fresh material is added at the top and finished compost dug out at the bottom." - from the following
URL:http://rds.yahoo.com/S=2766679/K=co mposting+in structions/v=2/SID=e/l=WS1/R=2/IPC=us/SHE=0/H=3/SI G=11oets7rg/EXP=1110826267/*-http%3A//www.lcida.or g/composting.html

For the size of most yards, this is a lot of space. It is hard to generate this kind of volume of the proper materials on a regular basis if you have a standard size suburban lot.

Forest for the trees

[Bastian]

These indoor composters seem to me to be a great example of people who are trying to be environmentally friendly, but get caught up in trying to do all sorts of "green" things without stopping to think why they are done, and thus doing them in some twisted way that really isn't helping anybody.

For example, I imagine that these indoor composters are meant for people who live in apartment buildings who don't have any space to compost outdoors. City-dwellers don't need, to be composting, though. People should compost to avoid consuming artificial fertilizers and incurring the environmental damange that they cause. Composting is a great way to fertilize your lawn without poisoning your soil and without being wasteful.

Call me dim, but I just fail to see where people who have no outdoor space to live in are going to find a use for several pounds a day worth of rotting organic matter. It's not like it's somehow better for the environment to throw compost in the trash than it is to pitch banana peels - they will decompose in the landfill just as nicely as they decomposed in your kitchen, and without you having to harm the environment by purchasing a large lump of plastic and burning some electricity.

You could much more inexpensively meet your keep-your-houseplants-happy compost needs by purchasing some of it every so often. I'm sure you can work out an arrangement with somebody at a farmer's market to supply you with the compost you need for far less than the $300 price tag you're looking at for this baby.

And you can do it without having to become the proud owner of yet another yuppie gadget that uselessly adds 10lb of plastic to the world and which you know is not going to make your life happy any more than your plasma TV and 5.1 surround sound system did, and which is going to end up on the curb faster than your ThighMaster did.

Re:Forest for the trees

[Claire-plus-plus]

It's not like it's somehow better for the environment to throw compost in the trash than it is to pitch banana peels - they will decompose in the landfill just as nicely as they decomposed in your kitchen, and without you having to harm the environment by purchasing a large lump of plastic and burning some electricity.

The real reason to compost is not getting fertiliser for your garden, it's preventing waste. Food scraps take up a large volume of the space in a "landfill" and most cities in the world are having to move their "landfill" further out. Food scraps are also a source of the nutrients of life, a resource that exists in large quantities but is still finite. It is a waste of these nurtients to dump them in a "landfill" that is so full of inorganic waste and toxic substances that it is unlikely that life will ever return there without help.

Composting is like most other recycling. It prevents waste from entering landfill unnecesarily and keeps a finite resource in circulation. The nitrogen and trace minerals in the food would be more useful being used to grow more food.

I personally would like to see cities building huge composting depots where you can dump your organic waste and they can sell/give the nutrients released (compost) to farmers who can turn those resources into a useful product (food) using an abundant natural energy source (the sun).

compost for everyone

[gardengranny]

Bastian, please keep in mind that some people are elderly and don't have the ability to mix and turn a half ton pile of compost every month. It's also very cold (and wet) in some parts of the world and for six months out of the year venturing to the compost pile is not pleasant. In Canada there are many areas where bears are frequent visitors to compost piles. So the machine at http://naturemill.com/ is a godsend for some of us. And yes, you are a little dim regarding the apartment dwellers. You see, some of us have indoor plants. Some of us have neighbors. Landfilling pretty much blocks the bio-degradable process because thos landfills are sealed up and there is no oxygen. Stuff just sits there. Composting is much better for our environment - at least it shrinks the size and weight of our waste.