Tag Archives: compost

How To Make Compost At Home

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Composting is an aerobic procedure that requires oxygen and transforms organic substances into a nutrient-rich soil enhancer or mulch via the process of natural decomposition. Microorganisms consume materials in the compost pile, utilizing carbon and nitrogen for growth, water for digestion, and oxygen for respiration, resulting in compost—a dark, crumbly material with an earthy smell. Composting is nature’s method of recycling naturally, helping in reducing waste, combating climate change, and enhancing the quality of the soil. The biggest advantage is that one can compost kitchen food scraps along with dry leaves and woody debris from your yard at home.

Designer: Otis Oat

What are the benefits of composting?

• Composting allows one to recycle food scrap and manage waste more sustainably.
• It helps in reducing the volume of materials that may get disposed of in landfills or trash incinerators, thereby reducing the emission of powerful greenhouse gases.

Designer: Homesteading Where You Are

• Composting requires minimal effort and is a cost-effective way to produce high-quality soil amendments while reducing the use of fertilizers and pesticides.
• Another advantage is that composting is that it creates nutrient-rich soil, prevents soil erosion, conserves water, and improves plant growth.

What are the different types of composting?

Composting can be broadly classified into backyard composting and vermicomposting.

Backyard Composting

Backyard composting includes carbon-rich materials or browns like dry leaves, twigs, plant stalks, nitrogen-rich materials, or greens like grass clippings and food scraps. Composting involves the presence of water and oxygen, where carbon-rich materials serve as food for microorganisms, and nitrogen-rich materials generate heat in the pile.

Image Source: Plantophiles

• For backyard composting, the first step is to decide on a method for gathering and storing browns outdoors and collect fruit and vegetable scraps in a sealed container either on your kitchen counter, under your sink, or in your fridge or freezer.
• Identify an accessible, well-draining space in your yard for a compost pile, and select a bin type, that can be constructed from materials like wire, wood, cinder blocks, or enclosed options such as barrels and tumblers.
• Chop and break down the browns and greens into smaller pieces before adding them to the pile to expedite the decomposition process.
• Construct the compost pile with a four- to six-inch layer of substantial browns, like twigs and wood chips, to absorb excess liquids, elevate the pile, and facilitate air circulation at the base. Follow by layering greens and, add a bit of water to moisten the pile. Note that the browns should be at least three times the greens.
• As the compost pile decomposes, the center temperature initially rises. One can speed up decomposition and aerate by turning and mixing the pile with a garden fork. Monitor moisture, odor, and temperature, adjusting as needed. Adjust the compost by moistening and turning if it’s too dry, adding browns and turning if there’s an odor, mixing in greens, and turning if it’s not heating up.
• Once your compost pile stops heating up and shows no visible food scraps after mixing, let it cure for at least four weeks, relocating the oldest compost if desired. Note that after curing, the pile will be reduced to about one-third.
• Well-maintained compost is ready in three to five months, looking dark, loose, and crumbly with a soil-like smell. Screen or sift the finished compost to remove undecomposed materials, such as twigs or fruit pits, and add them back to the active or new pile if desired.
• Well-constructed and properly maintained compost piles, whether in bins or open, should not attract pests or rodents. If using a bin, reinforce it with a lid and potentially a floor, ensuring no holes or gaps larger than ¼ inch. Cover and bury food scraps in the pile, and avoid adding meat, dairy, or greasy foods.

Vermicomposting

Vermicomposting employs specific earthworm species to enhance the organic waste conversion process, utilizing microorganisms and earthworms in a mesophilic environment. Earthworms consume organic materials, producing granular excrement known as vermicompost, which, in simple terms, improves soil’s biological, chemical, and physical properties. The earthworm’s digestive tract secretions aid in breaking down soil and organic matter, enriching the castings with readily available nutrients for plants. Various organic residues, including straw, husk, leaves, stalks, and livestock or poultry wastes, can be transformed into vermicompost, with earthworms reducing waste volume by 40–60 percent.

Types of Compost Bins

Here is a curated assortment of innovative compost bins.

1. Handheld Composting Machine

Designer: Shihcheng Chen

The ReGreen is a compact handheld device simulates the look of a miniature waste-disposal machine and incorporates an aluminum grinder that efficiently crushes and pulverizes waste while promoting quick biodegradation. The device features a top opening for waste input, a rotating arm that facilitates gentle pulverization and its base allows water drainage for compost drying. After waste is processed, one can introduce enzymes to speed up composting and convert organic waste into nutrient-rich compost.

2. Plant Cultivator and Compost Bin

Designer: Robin Akira

Paradise is an automated plant cultivator and compost bin designed to decrease domestic waste via the use of integrated technology that notifies users about compost and plant care needs. Inspired by the pandemic-driven shift to home-centric living, designer Robin Akira created Paradise to integrate greenery into interior spaces while addressing the global rise in domestic waste with its composting features and odor-sealing lid.

3. Compost Bin cum Indoor Garden

Designer: Chaozhi Lin

In a changing world where sustainability is a personal commitment, KAGURA, a self-sustaining indoor gardening system created by Chaozhi Lin, facilitates composting and vegetable cultivation. Consisting of a food waste container, elevated light structure, and three soil pots, KAGURA transforms scraps into compost, nourishing plants with an attractive, compact light fixture. Designed to fit any kitchen or living space, this system caters to environmentally conscious individuals in urban settings, addressing the challenge of limited yard space and making sustainable living feasible for city homes.

4. Compost Sleek Bin

Designer: Alp Çakın

Homepost, an innovative composting station, addresses waste challenges in office environments by accelerating the composting process, containing odors, and providing additional storage space. Its efficient design allows for the transformation of diverse organic waste, including plastics, paper, nutshells, teabags, coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable scraps, and eggshells. The system’s environmentally friendly construction, made from sustainable green polyethylene, absorbs carbon dioxide during production. Featuring a rotating arm for easy transportation, Homepost’s modules nest efficiently for minimal space occupancy during transit.

5. Composting Machine

Designer: Jinhwi Bang

Reencle tackles the escalating food waste issue in the USA by efficiently breaking down household food-prep waste, bones, peels, leftovers, and expired products into compost within 24 hours. Roughly the size of a trash bin, Reencle features an automatic opening lid and a control panel, with microorganisms inside its chamber facilitating the composting process. The mechanical churning system reduces waste volume through vigorous mixing, and any emissions are filtered to release trace amounts of water vapor and clean air. This at-home solution transforms food waste into nutrient-rich compost for gardens or disposal, mitigating environmental harm caused by landfill decomposition.

6. Stainless Steel Compost Bin

Designer: Adrian Moro

Kamoro’s Compost Bin is crafted with a streamlined airflow design that both dries out waste and provides essential oxygen for microbial survival, ensuring the effortless cultivation of a healthy compost batch. Its double-walled construction consists of an outer stainless-steel container and an inner plastic bucket. The stainless-steel container incorporates a perforated base to establish an airflow pattern, and an activated carbon filter on top effectively filters outgoing air, reducing any odors generated during the organic breakdown process.

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Living Coffin makes sure we continue the Circle of Life even in death

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Very few people are comfortable discussing matters related to death. In some cultures, it’s even taboo to do that. Despite social mores and psychological hurdles, there are businesses that thrive around the passing of family members and friends. The state environment might be the last thing on people’s minds when burying their loved ones, but it might shock them to learn that, even in death, we continue to harm the planet that has given us so much in our life. Since it’s a rather morbid topic that very few probably want to broach, it took vision, courage, and ingenuity to design a product that offers comfort to the bereaved while also giving back something to the environment, making sure that we continue to live on, even if in a completely different form.

Designer: Loop

Unless we have relatives or friends in the funeral business, we probably never give much thought to what pretty much becomes the last bed our body lies in. Presuming, of course, you don’t go for cremation or other practices and traditions. Few might have given any thought to the materials used for coffins, for example, and simply presume that they eventually decompose and disintegrate along with the human body. That, unfortunately, isn’t the case, and most of our funeral practices, be it burial or cremation, actually continue humanity’s crimes against Mother Nature.

The Living Coffin, which also goes by the less morbid name of Living Cocoon, shatters those misconceptions and even offers a way for people to make amends with the planet once they’ve ended their earthly journey. Instead of the typical materials used in coffins, which often use harmful chemicals or non-biodegradable materials, the “box” is actually made of mycelium. Or rather, the coffin is grown from a type of mushroom that is known for being nature’s biggest recycler.

The idea is not only for the coffin itself to return to the soil but also to transform dead organic matter into nutrients needed to grow plants. Yes, it basically turns your dead body into compost that could nurture new life. Instead of a cemetery filled with concrete, dead matter, and pollution, a burial site can actually become the start of a new forest, with each tree forever marking where your loved one was laid to rest. Inside the coffin is a bed of moss, rather than fabric or plastic, which helps the process along without poisoning the soil.

It is admittedly a novel concept that could unsettle some folks, but it is also a simple yet effective way to make sure that we leave behind a good legacy, no matter how we have lived our life. One of the things that people are advised to do in order to live forever is to plant a tree, but few of us are able to do so during our lifetime. The Living Coffin ensures that we’d still be able to do that after our death and could even have a tree to our own name.

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A smart compost tracking system that analyses soil conditions to send alerts to users

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Monty is a smart compost tracking system that analyzes soil conditions with Bluetooth and smart technology before sending alerts to users through a mobile app of when their soil could use some extra care.

Everyone thinks about composting at some point. Whether you have a small, windowsill herb garden or a full grassy yard, composting helps keep greenery abundant and healthy while also recycling organic waste back into the soil. While the benefits are many, actual compost gardens are few and far between. Making the composting game accessible and easy for everyone, Monty is a smart compost system that connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth to track compost data and break the process down into simple steps.

“Compost can reduce our waste, feed our food, and save our soil but not enough people do it,” as the creators behind Monty put it. Monty Compost Company developed its smart compost system to help make composting more efficient and approachable for people with all types of gardens. Using integrated smart technology, Monty’s soil sensors connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth and use an app-based management system to help track the conditions of the compost in your garden. Monty is comprised of a mobile app and sensor wand that analyzes the state of your soil to indicate when more compost can be added.

Stocked with first-class smart technology, Monty tracks the key compost health indicators such as soil temperature, humidity, and VOCs. Wireless by design, Monty can be disassembled and plugged into an external charging basin, where the batteries can power up before hitting the soil again. Through the mobile app, users will be alerted when their soil needs water, less sunshine, or more compost as the wand tracks its conditions.

Designer: Monty Compost Co.

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This compostable flower scoop made from peanut shells is an award-winning packaging design!

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Packaging design is so interesting but the best innovation always comes when great packaging meets sustainability! Seed Scoop Fertilizer is a prime example of sustainable packaging design – it is seed packaging that includes a scoop made of peanut shell material and seeds…natural materials down to every last element!

Designed by students from the Royal College of Art, this award-winning green design shows the practical process of how the compostable product was made. The user should take out the seeds first, then use the scoop to dig the soil out and bury the seeds in the flowerpot. Finally, the user could break the spatula into pieces, put it in the soil, and drip it with water, to make the scoop become fertilizer and give nutrients. Designing environment-friendly products have always been the mission of designers. We hope to let more people pay attention to the sustainable use of resources through this design.

Peanut shells are often discarded by people in daily life, but we found that peanut shells still contain a lot of nutrients and can be used as fertilizer. Seed Scoop Fertilizer has a flower scoop made of peanut shells and seeds. When using, the user first takes out the seeds from the flower scoop, then uses the flower scoop to dig the soil out and plant the seeds in the flowerpot. Finally, the user could break the flower scoop into pieces, place it in the soil, and drip it with water, so that the flower scoop becomes fertilizer to give nutrients!

Designers: Zhixi Dai, Zixi Chen, and Hao Yao

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This zero waste kitchen has a built-in herb garden & composter – a super multifunctional kitchen design!

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Did you know that 75 years ago, every kitchen was a zero-waste kitchen? Fun fact: in 1926, Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s kitchen had a wall of bins to store ingredients without any packaging at all! The concept of a zero-waste kitchen is not new and is certainly still in practice in many South Asian and East Asian countries that still use traditional storing and packaging methods. Obviously, our lives have changed and advanced tremendously over the last 75 years, so Ivana Steiner of Vienna is designing a zero-waste kitchen that fits our modern lifestyle and homes.

Steiner visited six zero-waste stores in Vienna for research and as an architect who has always loved working on kitchens, she took it upon herself to bring change through design. She wanted to dedicate her kitchen design to work around the current climate crisis while combating it. “Zero Waste does not hope that politics and business will tell you how and when you will implement your environmental measures and goals, but rather that each of us can actively contribute to climate protection through a resource-saving lifestyle. Zero waste not only includes avoiding waste but also how we deal with nutrition and cooking. If we concentrate on fewer, regional foods without packaging, we can actually implement changes in our immediate surroundings,” says Steiner.

This zero-waste kitchen is built from recycled stainless steel made in electric arc furnaces and it lasts forever. The large table is the core of the design, it is meant to be used as a cooking and eating surface. The structure has designated areas for glass containers, baskets for fruit and vegetables, a worm box, storage space for multi-purpose vessels, linen bags, and a vertical herb garden – it is indeed a highly functional and multi-faceted design! The worm box regularly provides humus which can be used for the herb garden and if the kitchen is in a dark area of the house or if you live in a country with little sunlight then you might need a daylight lamp for your herb garden.

The built-in herb garden and worm composter together make the process very efficient even for those who are taking beginner steps into a sustainable lifestyle – this way, you’re set up for success because the maintenance is integrated into how the kitchen functions. This kitchen stores everything in jars to avoid producing waste in the form of bin liners. Jars are also easier to refill if you take them to your grocery store. This was a fairly calculated design decision as the buying trend moves towards more unpacked items, especially in urban areas where the food is stored and sold in glass containers to encourage reuse. Glass jars are also sealed tightly compared to bins making it a more sanitary option.

Since the design is based on a minimalist lifestyle, the kitchen deliberately does not include upper cupboards or extra storage. You only keep things that you use every day – a limited number of 12 deep plates, 12 flat plates and 12 small flat plates, 12 water glasses, and 8 wine glasses are used and stored comfortably in the zero-waste kitchen. There is no dishwasher but it does come with a double sink for all intents and purposes as well as a rack for dishtowels. However, studies have shown that dishwashers are actually more efficient and save resources!

The European-style kitchen has a lot of prep space in form of pullout panels, a small oven as well as a tiny fridge behind the Planet B typography. Zero Waste Kitchen is small, deliberate, and purposeful in every detail and encourages a life of fresh food without waste!

Designer: Ivana Steiner

These sustainable single-use takeout containers made from wheat husk are fully compostable!

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These days, we’re ordering takeout and a lot of it. Part convenience, part laziness, takeout gives some much-needed variety with the monotony of cooking every meal during the pandemic. With this surge in popularity, Forest & Whale, a multidisciplinary design practice that focuses on products, circular systems, and future envisioning, hope to combat single-use plastic’s harmful impact on the environment with Reuse, a single-use food container that can either be composted in cities with available corresponding facilities or eaten.

Gustavo Maggio and Wendy Chua co-founded Forest & Whale as a means to explore the world of design and its relationship with the environment, along with our own human behavior and living experiences. Made from wheat husk for its base and PHA for the lid, Reuse serves as a fully compostable food container that not only amplifies our experience consuming takeout food but creates a conversation around our high-consumption habits and the negative effect they have on our environment. Wheat husk and PHA, a bacteria-based composite that works like a natural plastic derived from organic materials, can both be composted as food waste, without additional industrial-level composting facilities. The usability of Reuse hinges on its simple decomposition and accessible construction processes, appeals for large cities and small towns alike to adopt this form of containing takeout food. Similar to the paper straw revolution we’ve seen come to fruition almost overnight, the takeout industry could quickly adapt to swapping out their plastic containers for biodegradable and compostable ones like Reuse.

While single-use plastic containers are convenient and quick to get rid of, they leave a startling impact on the environment. Accounting for their low-recyclability rate, plastic takeout containers stick around for ages, running off into waterways and polluting the oceans, spreading toxins to wildlife, releasing harmful chemicals and gases into the air we breathe, and generally disrupting our waste management systems. Maggio and Chua of Forest & Whale designed Reuse to take some of the pressure off our planetary responsibility and health. With hopes of entirely replacing single-use plastic containers with compostable and edible takeout bins, Reuse marks the initial steps towards a worthwhile goal.

Designer: Forest & Whale

Made from wheat husk and PHA, Reuse single-use food containers are fully compostable and edible.

Reuse food containers fully decompose in nature within one to three months, minimizing their end-of-life impact.

This sustainable amenity kit produces clean energy & reduces plastic waste for hotels when composted

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All industries are making an effort to pivot and use more sustainable designs in an effort to slow down the climate crisis. We are seeing a boom in material experimentation and exploration, especially to make products that are biodegradable because that encourages a circular economy that works for the planet and the user. Single-use plastic is one of the biggest non-biodegradable contributors to ocean pollution. My biggest pet-peeve is when hotels have each item in their toiletries kit wrapped in plastic – it is so unnecessary and given the turnover of these items, it creates a tonne of waste. The Green Box is an innovative solution that aligns hotel stays with your sustainable lifestyle choices!

It is an amenity kit designed to help hotels to transition to a circular economy and avoid the waste generated by tens-of-millions of amenity kits are thrown away by hotel chains – we use them once but they last forever on our planet. Green box is made from compostable plastic which will let hotels industrially compost and organically recycle the items in a controlled environment. The design goes beyond providing functional value and also aims to educate guests about the material and its impact to encourage better choices even after the vacation ends. Each box comes with a disposable bin for the room to familiarize guests with the new kind of waste-stream. The guests will sort materials as compostable and non-compostable by simply following the color grading – green for compostable and white for general waste. Then they will put the green compostable items in the green part of the box and the white parts (contaminated with bacterias to be composted) will be disposed of with the general waste.

Once separated, the green items along with the rest of the organic waste from the hotel restaurant will be composted on an industrial facility. After 10 weeks of the methanization process, we will be left with soil and bio-gas which can be used to generate power. In fact, the Green Box might produce enough energy to power a standard LED light bulb for over 27 hours. The remaining organic matter left could be used as a soil fertilizer. The color system is easy to follow and by doing it themselves, the guests can see how much waste is being generated. This creates a beautiful circular design and business model for hotels to implement using bioplastics.

Designer: OnMateria

This handheld composting machine works just like a coffee-grinder, turning waste into nutrient-rich pulp!

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No, this doesn’t mean your coffee-bean grinder can help you make compost!

The ReGreen is a nifty little handheld device that’s designed to speed up the composting process by entire weeks. Working almost like a handheld version of your waste-disposal machine, the ReGreen lets you manually crush and pulverize your waste into smaller bits that are much easier to biodegrade.

The grinder-shaped device is made entirely out of aluminum, allowing it to easily cut through waste while resisting rot/corrosion, and being easy to clean. Waste goes into the ReGreen through the opening on the top, and a rotating arm lets you gently and effectively pulverize the waste into manageable pieces, while water drips out of the base, drying out your compost. A sachet of enzymes are then introduced into the ReGreen before shutting the lid. The enzymes accelerate the composting process by giving the microorganisms the food they need to break down the organic waste into nutrient-rich dry-compost in a matter of weeks – as opposed to the months it usually takes for waste to turn into compost. Once a composting cycle is complete, the ReGreen can easily be rinsed under running water and cleaned with soap!

The ReGreen Tiny Compost Machine is a winner of the A’ Design Award for the year 2020.

Designer: Shihcheng Chen

A 100% biodegradable adhesive-free shoe you can fully disassemble + compost in your backyard!

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At the back of our minds, we all want to make some difference to the deteriorating environment, and we do a thing or two consciously to prove a point. But one thing that we’ve all been doing otherwise – knowingly or unknowingly, there aren’t many options you’d argue – is using a pair of sneakers made from plastic or rubber. According to researchers, a pair of joggers you wear for the morning run takes upward of 30 years to decompose completely. While there is no clear definition of what makes a shoe sustainable, there are companies such as Adidas, Allbirds, and a few others, trying to build sneakers with recycled materials to address the issue – but it’s just not enough!

Almost every pair of shoes currently being billed as sustainable uses some recycled or biodegradable materials. However, a strong adhesive is used to join these materials, which makes separating them difficult – leading to issues in end of life management. Designer Rik Olthuis from the Massey University of New Zealand has thought of a very innovative shoe design to overcome this lapse in eco-friendliness of footwear dubbed sustainable. The Voronoi Runners are made from 100-percent biodegradable materials, each of which can be separated easily at end of life to be composted. The result is a pair of sneakers you can wear and when done; you can separate each part of the shoe and send it down your backyard/kitchen compost to one day be used as manure for your garden – nothing remains behind, the Earth can breathe lighter and you can jog with your head held high.

The main structure of Voronoi Runners is 3D printed using a robust, flexible biodegradable filament used to create the outsole and the midsole. The polyurethane foam is replaced by biodegradable alternative foam made using gelatine and glycerine, which offers comfy cushioning to the foot. Using 3D printing to create the midsole allows the Voronoi Runners to adapt to the individual wearer’s foot. The toe and heel caps printed from plant fibers add substance and shape to the Merino wool upper of the trainers that are also comfortable for everyday use. To eliminate the use of adhesive, the shoes are sewn using organic cotton thread and finished off with linen laces. This makes the Voronoi Runners easy to be dismantled fully and composted responsibly. Check out an on-foot video of the Voronoi below to get a hang of it.

Designer: Rik Olthuis

Vollebak’s 100% biodegradable plant+pomegranate hoodie can be composted in your backyard!

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Vollebak continues to push the limits every time on how innovative, functional, and sustainable their designs can be while I push the limits on why I need more hoodies in my closet. I didn’t choose the hoodie life but Vollebak did and they are making the most of it in their latest hoodie made from compostable plants and pomegranate!

Inspired by our ancestors who made their clothes using grass, tree bark, animal skins, and plants, etc. the Plant and Pomegranate hoodie feels, looks, and lasts as long as a normal hoodie but it is far from normal. Think of it as the Clark Kent of hoodies – it looks ordinary and then when you take a closer look, you realize its superpower which in this case is helping our environment. Vollebak has been a leader in making sustainable apparel that is also super innovative like its solar power jacket, the indestructible hoodie, and the biodegradable algae t-shirt which is the closest product to the Plant and Pomegranate hoodie. “The thing that makes it different is simply the way it starts and ends its life. Each hoodie is made from eucalyptus trees from sustainably managed forests before being submerged in a giant vat of pomegranate dye to give it its color. As it’s made entirely from plants, the hoodie is fully biodegradable and compostable,” explains the team.

Once you feel your hoodie has completed its circle of life (it could be 3 years or 30!) then all you have to do is put it out with the compost or bury it in your garden. Vollebak’s hoodie was given birth from elements grown in nature and ends it’s life there too, you can quote Rafiki in the funeral if you decide to hold one in case you are as extra as me. Don’t hold back tears, they might just water a new pomegranate plant in your garden! Ending fast fashion and adopting a sustainable clothing style might seem like a small step but it is still an important step to reduce waste generation and help our planet. Your closet and the climate will both thank you for making eco-conscious decisions – so, let the hoodie life choose you!

Designer: Vollebak

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