We live in a fast paced world. People are chasing short cuts and instant results. But this haste can often come at a cost. For example, lets think about our soils and compost. Natural processes have occurred over millennia to form our most basic resource – soil. Making good quality compost takes some work. Microbes need time to break down our food waste into a form that can be assimilated into our soils by the soil food web.
Whenever an industry becomes popular, and potentially lucrative, you often see new products trying to capture the market and buyer enthusiasm. In recent years this has happened in the world of composting and food waste. Unfortunately for anyone looking to make real, high quality, compost, not all of these new products deliver what they promise to.
The US Composting Council’s Position Statement on countertop ‘composters’ makes it clear:
“Marketing these devices as “composters” and further suggesting the resulting material may be used in applications suitable for compost is misleading, confusing to the public, and damaging to the composting industry.”
These countertop machines are simply dehydrating and grinding the food waste. This reduces the volume of the waste and removes some of the yuck factor. They may have a role to play in facilitating transportation of food waste, but they do not produce compost.
Furthermore, in a BioCycle CONNECT column in March 2023, Dr. Sally Brown noted,
“these appliances take the highly putrescible (ready to rot) food waste and stabilize it by removing the moisture. Without the water, no microbe can decompose the stuff. The drying removes the water and also concentrates the salts. When you take this dried food waste and put water back into it (Figure 1), the microbes are able to step right up and resume the decomposition process. The yuck comes right back.”
Making real compost takes time and, lets be honest, at least some ick. Bokashi composting helps speed up the process of traditional back-yard composting of food waste. But not at the expense of the final product. Have you ever tried growing plants in dead, microbe-less dirt? If so, you will know the value of good quality compost and you will know that it is worth the work!
Can you add the countertop ‘composter’ dirt to bokashi bucket
Yes, you can add the output from these electric machines to your bokashi composter. However, the dehydrated material will need to absorb moisture before it before the bokashi microbes are attracted to the food waste. It would be easier, and less wasteful, to simply add the food waste directly to your bokashi bucket and skip the dehydration/grinding step.
Thanks for the informational email regarding these countertop ‘imposters.’ I’ve seen these on some YouTube channels I subscribe to, & was wondering about them. I’ll stick to my Bokashi way. 🙂