Naturemill Low-energy Indoor Composter

Do not buy these 'indoor composters'.

they represent massive embodied energy -- simply bury your trash in a hole.

Or

look into simple vermiculture.

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if you live in an urban setting, cut a hole through some sod and go gorilla for your composting.

your further off than this plastic monster.

random person:

On one hand, I agree with you. This 'plastic monster' is just something that will eventually have to go in a landfill itself, and it's extra unnecessary consumption. Personally, I won't buy one, because I've got access to a little bit of land I can compost on.

On the other, vast numbers of people don't have any sod under which to compost. While we *can* engineer even upscale condominiums with enough otherwise unused space to do something like this, we don't. A centralized composting site is on my list of necessities for a good shared housing system, but in dense urban areas, where are your options?

I'd like to see a product like this made entirely of sustainable materials - the less processing, the better.

Random person might consider being a little informative than inflammatory. It seems a bit curious, and I can't quite understand the purpose outright..is this for creating soil or reducing waste volume? I'm thinking soil creation here because my organic waste should break down just as well at the dump. I'm curious how this compares to other urban methods of composting..worms, sod? burying in a hole?

On the one hand, it's a $300 piece of plastic and electronics, consumes power from the outlet, and is another possession to cart around when you move and necessitates a larger living space.

On the other hand, it solves a very real problem for those of us who live in an urban setting with no access to sod or a porch, and don't want the smell and hassle of indoor vermiculture. If nothing else at all, it reduces your waste volume. As a bonus, you get high quality soil for any indoor plants you might have.

I'd love to see it use more sustainable materials in its construction, but I doubt it would be at the $300 price point if that were the case.

That composter is too expensive!

What about this composter that doesn't use electricity but is small enough (20" deep by 25"width) for apartment dwellers. http://www.greenfeet.com/com.html
I wish it was made of recyced plastic but this seems to be the best one I've found for an apartment dweller.

oops! the composter I mentioned isn't for indoor use but can go on a small deck or balcony

I do have to wonder what the goal of dense urban composting is. If it's for soil generation for your own use, then I guess this is a good idea. If it's because you don't want to throw your organic waste out, taking it to your local farmer's market (for New Yorkers, anyway-- the Union Square Greenmarket has compost collection) or eco-center that has a compost pile seems a lot cheaper than this thing.

Ditto on that observation. I've always thought that compost was supposed to be an environmentally-friendly alternative to fertilizers and potting soil and the like. If you live in the city and don't have any space for outdoor composting, I seriously doubt you have much of a use for the biomass you are going to be generating with an indoor composter, either. Would't it be much better to find a way to give your organic waste to somebody who needs it? And even if it goes to the landfill, it will decompose there, too, and that decomposed organic matter is going to be vital to the future reclamation of that landfill.

Note that any organic mass sent to the landfill _will not_ compost because it is not getting enough Oxygen.

The reason you turn the compost is to ensure the aerobic bacteria are getting enough air so they can continue to break down the biomass into compost.

National Geographic ran an article a few years ago about how some folks pulled 30-year-old newspapers from the dump that were still readable, because there was no aerobic bacteria present that could munch on the cellulose and break it down.

Hauling UNcomposted waste anywhere is going to be unpleasant for most people who can't drop it off every day without fail. Fruit flies will emerge in 24 hours, not to mention the bacteria and fungi that start to grow. Hauling compost is a lot friendlier.

I see a much bigger issue with this.... namely that american culture is based around each person or family owning one of everything instead of being socially responsible and leading the world by an example of goodness. its OK to return to older ideas, like a village midden heap.... but of course todays folks would have to drive there, and as for putting rotting veggies in your suburban... well...

Any chance that something like this could handle human waste some day? Perhaps a larger unit that is built into the house/apartment complex. This could make a difference in old urban areas that don't have adequate sewage systems.

When I was a kid, I saw a huge "outhouse/compost pile" at the state park.

Composting human waste? You could check out this guy's site http://www.weblife.org/humanure/default.html

However, I doubt if your local municipality and your neighbours would be too keen on you running your own ad hoc sewage recycling.

Random Person ought to have a look at my compost pile right now. Try as I can, the cold eventually shuts down the organic processes during the winter, so all I really have is a frozen pile of half-rotted fruits and veggies. I try to anoint it with guinea pig litter to make it less appetizing to the local vermin. Forget stirring; it's frozen solid for at least six inches in. Worms? More like wormsicles.

Plus, there's the incredible inconvenience of putting on boots, walking through the snow to the pile, hopefully getting the wheelbarrow off the top, trudging back, and tracking snow and sand back in the house. I have adequate character already, thank-you-very-much, and do not need to build more.

Without having a more in-depth look at numbers, I can't say anything for certain.. But one of the major benefits of the Naturemill seems to be the reduction of waste that has to be delivered to your local landfill.

As some people mentioned above, it doesn't seem likely that a landfill provides the best conditions for your kitchen waste to decompose, but more importantly you might be able to reduce the environmental and monetary costs of said delivery.

I live in a neighborhood of 163 apartments, and while we could certainly invest in a couple of central composts spread out among our households, a good bet is that 70% would handle it just fine but the remaining 30% would do enough damage that we'd not be able to make it work well enough in the long run.

If we were instead able to, say, offer a reduced price on some indoor compost solution like Naturemill, those who were actually interested in making this work would probably end up getting one.. Then after a while we'd see our waste volume going down, and we could either reduce the waste pickup frequency, or reduce the number of bins that we keep. Either of those would result in less environmental harm from the pickup truck, and lower costs for us.

It's great to aim for community efforts and less environmentally destructive equipment, but sometimes community benefits from personal efforts, and even something that's harmful to the environment to produce can give a benefit in the long run that outweighs the harm.

Learning from history, and current events, it should be evident that while hopefully sometime in the future things will look better, right now most people tend to pick short-term goals like comfort over long-term benefits like a healthy environment.

The reasonable approach must be to find solutions that both cater to those short-term goals AND give the long-term benefits.

Wow, that's a bit longer than what I intended to write. Time for me to go to my theory class so that I can eventually aquire my enabler of that most environmentally unfriendly thing called "car" , namely a driver's license.

Very interesting reading everyone’s points of view except Mr random person.

Many European city dwellers have very small gardens big enough to cope with the amount of soil improver from the likes of Naturmill but not room for a compost heap. Bess asks what’s the point of home composting is, its called the proximity principal. If everyone can manage their own waste at home then municipal vehicles do not need to convert organics into airborne carbon to collect the stuff. The idea is your waste travels as short a distance as possible.

Jf requests a composter that runs without electricity, I hope fuel cells will soon be inexpensive and flexible enough to be incorporated into small automatic composting machines so the microbes by-product can be used to power the automation.

Bastian, don’t be fooled, landfill (and incineration) are not good and not sustainable, they are lazy solutions for governments that do not take the waste hierarchy seriously. Landfills make methane due to an anaerobic process, this is not something to leave for future generations.

The human waste question… human waste has a very high calorific value and for countries that have woken up to this, use it as a valuable resource. Compost toilets are a great idea even in a suburb, but you’ve got to be committed!

Johan has good points. The driver behind community involvement comes from above, err well government anyway. If peoples waste disposal is charged by weight you should see the speed that home composting is taken up. This is being trialled in the UK and can reduce municipal solid waste by over 15% over night.

What I actually wanted to ask; has anyone actually witnessed a Naturmill? From what I can work out it is a data collection activity to assess if there is a market and they have not cracked what is a challenging problem. Anyone…?

This thing is a scam I swear.
I don't know anyone who owns one, and I've asked a lot of people.
I don't even think they're making them anymore, if they ever did.
And if they are making them, they need to bump up production by a couple thousand fold.
Waiting on their little registry waiting list for over a year now, and I haven't gotten word one from them.
And I'd like to say that maybe they just looked me over, but I have about a dozen friends who've registered, and they haven't gotten a note from there people.

So I'm going to make my own, and I'll make mine solar powered.

I've got one of these things and it seems to work pretty well. I was surprised that there are no odors, even when you empty out the compost. It's definitely more expensive than one of those backyard tumblers, but then again it's very convenient. I keep it right in the kitchen, and just drop in my scraps right there. No more trudging out to the compost pile. A big plus is right on the lid is quite a thorough list of things you can and can't put in there. That has always been a cause of confusion for us. It says that lemons and limes are no good (because of the acid), but fish bones and tea bags are ok. They've obviously done their homework. I've made a few batches of compost already, and it sure feels good to cut down on all the trash. I only wish I had more plants to feed.