Digging in the Dirt: 4 Home Composters Reviewed and Rated

I am a big fan of composting, but it doesn't always go according to plan. A rat moved into my compost pile. It seemed to like coffee grounds. Colin the Compost Rat was persuaded to move on after several frank exchanges of views. A pile of rotting stuff is considered a delicacy by many creatures, and so you protect and fence your mixture of kitchen scraps and garden trimmings, they will find a way in. I don't want the fauna of the earth to live outside my bedroom window, especially when one of them is getting a buzz from a cup of coffee.

What is the alternative to an outdoor compost pile? Home composting machines are meant to be used in the kitchen. A variety of devices exist to take your waste and cook it down into a soil-like mix that you can dig into your flower bed. Some of the devices that I tested were the $300 Vitamix FoodCycler FC-50, the $499 Pela Lomi, the $429 BeyondGreen Kitchen Waste Composter, and the $429 Reencle Prime.

Composting breaks down.

We need to talk about what compostable means before we can decide if one of these machines is for you. There are many products on the market that are labeled as compostable. Woken coffeepods are 100 percent compostable and can be used for a quick coffee fix, but Colin discovered that they can also be used for lunch. In its FAQ, Woken says that it turns into CO 2 and water in municipal composting facilities.

Can these home composters turn a pile of food scraps and coffeepods into something useful? The Reencle produced a light, well-broken-down mix from pretty much anything I threw in it. Banana skins and coffeepods were difficult to break down, taking much longer than usual.

It might be better to leave it to the experts. If you have a municipal composting service, you can just throw the waste into the collection bins and get the compost back from the agency for your trouble. If you don't have access to a local composting service, you can make your own compost heap. A barrel is designed to process compost outdoors. If you don't have the space or desire for outdoor composting, these devices can be used to make compost from your everyday food waste.

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The best overall.

Reencle.

The Reencle Prime tries to recreate processes from the natural world inside a container. You put the water in the chamber, add the Reencle Microbe mix, and then throw the food waste away. The brew is quickly turned into a mix of vitamins and minerals. The Bokashi process usesbacteria to break down food waste. The Reencle Plus is more efficient than Bokashi. Most of my food scraps were broken down within a day after the Reencle was up and running.

The ReencleMicrobe mix contains rice husks, vermiculite, nonpathogenic bacillusbacteria, ammonium sulfate, and wood pellets, according to the company. As long as the device is turned on and fed occasional food waste, the bacteria responsible for breaking down waste will continue to breed and thrive inside the mix.