Tag Archives: Composter

Food compost bin concept turns food waste and cardboard into fertilizer

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Our eating habits have changed drastically over the past years, especially after the recent boom in food delivery services. Unfortunately, this isn’t always for the best as it has encouraged unhealthy lifestyles and increased the amount of waste we produce. Of course, there are services that try to remedy that with healthy food options and more sustainable packaging, but those don’t always result in a reduction of how much we throw out at the end of the day, or even after each meal. Human food doesn’t have to go to waste, especially if it can be converted into food for other living creatures like plants. That’s the idea behind this compositing device that transforms not just your meal but also its packaging into something to keep your plants just as healthy as you.

Designer: Byeonkyu Park

That salad you didn’t finish might come in cardboard packaging, but the moment you throw it in the bin, it stops being healthy for the planet. Sure, both materials will decompose eventually, but not only will that take time, it also misses out on the opportunity to use those for something more beneficial in the long run. After all, they can turn into fertilizer, but only if they’re actually treated in a proper manner, which usually involves taking them to recycling or composting centers.

Toggle is a device concept that lets you cut off the middleman and do all of that at home, and it works by using both edible and inedible parts of your meal delivery. It utilizes “green” materials like food waste mixed with “brown” materials like paper and cardboard or even wood, pretty much the things that your food came in. In other words, nothing is wasted, unless your meal is wrapped in plastic instead.

The device doesn’t simply mix these two groups into some disgusting slosh. One part of the machine has a shredder to reduce cardboard and wood into tiny bits, while another is a grinder that cuts up the food waste. The components are heated to reduce the volume of the waste and turn the mixture into something almost similar to the soil you will dump it on. The result is homemade fertilizer that you can use for the plants you’re growing both indoors and in your backyard.

While the process of handling waste might sound and look icky, Toggle is designed to hide those details as much as possible. In fact, it’s made to look more like a stylish and sophisticated can, just one that deftly handles the food you would have thrown out indiscriminately. In addition to safety mechanisms to protect kids in the house, the concept device is made to look discreet, attractive, and easy to use. It’s meant to encourage a more responsible lifestyle that goes beyond just eating properly, making sure that your plants and the planet can also benefit from your healthier lifestyle.

The post Food compost bin concept turns food waste and cardboard into fertilizer first appeared on Yanko Design.

Transform Your Food Waste into Nutrient-Rich Compost with this Elegant Tabletop Device

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The Nagualep Nano is a countertop kitchen composter that cuts down your organic waste by as much as 90% by turning it into nutrient-rich homemade fertilizer. The entire device is as compact as an air fryer, quieter than a refrigerator, consumes as much electricity as a coffee maker, and turns up to 3.5 liters of food scraps into organic compost in under 30 minutes without any odor, germs, or pests.

Designer: Jordan Scott Miller

Click Here to Buy Now: $399 $639 (37% off). Hurry, only 42/50 left!

Let’s be honest. Nobody feels ‘good’ chucking their food waste into the waste disposer. It’s noisy, energy-consuming, and acts as a reminder that you’ve wasted food that is now headed into the drainage and eventually, the oceans. Designed to be about as convenient, but 100x more sustainable, the Nagualep Nano is a countertop kitchen composter that quickly turns your food waste into food for the planet. Its unique design helps it sanitize your food, and then immediately break it down into dry, nutrient-dense fertilizer that you can either use in your own kitchen garden or backyard, or dump in the trash knowing fully well that the fertilizer will benefit the earth rather than harm it. It also helps cut your waste footprint down to 10% of what it would originally be, so you’ll feel less bad about disposing of food scraps, peels, shells, pulp, bones, etc.

With a 3.5L capacity, the Nagualep Nano is a small but spacious little device, occupying the same amount of footprint as a coffee maker or air-fryer on your kitchen countertop. With a top-loading design, the Nano becomes your go-to for disposing of any kind of organic, biodegradable waste, from peels and scraps to bones, shells, spoilt food, yard waste, and even biodegradable paper/plastic containers. A simple two-button interface lets you switch between composting mode and self-cleaning mode, and once you hit the button on the inside, the Nano’s proprietary high-torque motor gets to work, silently doing its job of breaking down your waste and reducing it by 90% of its original volume while also killing all the bad germs and bacteria in the process. Here’s how it works.

Sterilizing Temperatures – Nano begins to heat up internally to 260°F to kill 99.9% of bacteria.

The Nagualep Nano uses a combination of heat and the motor’s chopping action to break down the organic matter into compost. Put your waste in and just hit the button on top and the Nano fires up its internal chamber to an operating temperature of 260°F, killing 99% of all the bacteria in the waste in under 6 minutes. After its 6-minute heat-treatment cycle, the Nano brings the chamber down to a regular operating temperature, with a reduced power consumption of 70W. It then continues to process your waste for another 24 minutes, chopping and churning it to aerobically break down your waste into a soil-like compost. The entire process happens in less time than a washing machine takes to do your laundry, and the Nagualep Nano generates no noise or odors in the process.

Proprietary Motor – With German-made carbon brushes, Nano’s motor features high-torque, low RPM, and a long service life. This is why you can hardly hear Nano during operation.

This odorless, soundless operation is thanks to the Nano’s pretty impressive design. Building on Nagualep’s NA2 kitchen composter from 2021, the Nano shows a few significant improvements. While its predecessor only had a 2.5L capacity, emitted 40dB of noise, and took a full 1.5 hours to complete its composting cycle, the Nano is more spacious, more intelligent, less noisy (at just 35dB), and 3 times as fast. Its proprietary high-torque low-RPM motor works completely silently, thanks to German carbon brushes, and the Nano can even intelligently detect if there’s something too big or unnaturally hard in the Nano’s basket, shutting down the process to prevent damage to its parts.

Self-Cleaning – Clean at the press of a button.

Maintaining the Nagualep Nano is rather easy too, and can be done once every couple of cycles to keep your kitchen countertop sanitary. The Nano’s control panel has its own self-cleaning button that immediately cleans out the internal basket when pressed. All you need to do is pour some water in and the Nano gets to work, meticulously self-cleaning without any chemicals or solvents. The Nano also has its own active carbon air filters on the back that keep your kitchen odor-free by filtering the air and absorbing any odor molecules and VOCs. The filter does require changing too, but only once or twice in an entire year, depending on how frequently you use your Nano.

The Nagualep Nano comes in two colors, a white and a space-gray, with a two-button interface and a blue LED halftone pattern on the front that lights up to let you know when the Nano’s running. The 3.5L of internal storage is big enough for 2-3 days worth of food if you’re a small family, and provides the perfect alternative to smelly trash cans that attract flies, bugs, bacteria, and pests like raccoons. Just a simple push of a button turns your waste into an odorless soil in just 30 minutes, which you can then use in your own backyard or kitchen garden to grow your own produce, living a life that’s healthier for you as well as for the planet! The Nagualep Nano starts at a discounted price of $399 and begins shipping as soon as May 2023.

Click Here to Buy Now: $399 $639 (37% off). Hurry, only 42/50 left!

The post Transform Your Food Waste into Nutrient-Rich Compost with this Elegant Tabletop Device first appeared on Yanko Design.

This self-sustaining planter + composter takes the work out of indoor gardening

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To reduce their environmental impact, my parents have started composting their food waste. Great idea, but there are two small problems with their set-up: one, my parents aren’t gardeners, so the resulting manure is usually scattered on empty soil beds (which the weeds appreciate), and two, the composter lives in the backyard, which means they keep a plastic container on the back porch for their discarded orange peels and wilted salad (not the prettiest sight). Overall, the composter is not living up to its full potential, because it doesn’t suit my parents’ lifestyle.

Segue to the Sustainable Family Farm, a miniature composter and planter that is best suited for indoor life. When I saw this design, my first thought was Ah-hah, the perfect Christmas gift for my parents … in theory, since it hasn’t entered the market yet. A mini-composter isn’t a novel idea; in fact, you can make your own with a plastic jug, soil, and some worms. However, the Sustainable Family Farm sets itself apart in two ways: first, by integrating seamlessly into the household regardless of the members’ gardening/composting experience, second, by making gardening into a fun experience for the family.

The product accomplishes this first point by utilizing all the food waste in the household without requiring a lot of additional effort. All you have to do is dump your compostable scraps into the plant incubator and monitor your veggies’ growth. The amount of maintenance that goes into the gardening depends on the seeds you choose — and there plenty of low maintenance options, like basil or cilantro. The Sustainable Family Farm accomplishes its second goal, making gardening a fun activity with the power of smartphones. The planter features a companion app, which treats gardening as a game, showing the stages of plant growth as “levels” for your real-life veggies. If you were a teen in the late 2000s, you might remember the popular Facebook game, Farmville? Imagine that concept but in real life. Or, you know … regular farming. (Jeez, I’ve exposed myself as a phone-addicted city-dweller.)

The Sustainable Family Farm, I think, is one of the most accessible urban planter concepts I’ve seen. Its low maintenance process makes it as easy as possible for anyone to grow herbs or small vegetables. You just need to buy the seeds and worms to get started – the circle of life takes care of the rest.

This concept won the European Product Design Award in “Home Interior Products/Household Appliances” and “Design for Society/Design for Sustainability.” An earlier version of this design was also featured on Yanko Design.

Designer: Chaozhi Lin

This triangle-shaped food-waste processor fits perfectly in the corner of your kitchen

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A common problem in smaller households (and I’m fairly familiar with this as someone who lives on his own) is that the garbage bag never fills up in one day. Having fewer people live in a house obviously means lesser waste created on a day-to-day basis, which means it takes a good 3-4 days to really fill up your trash before you chuck it out.

Rather than living with that old, rancid, smelly trash for 3-4 days, the Alone food-waste processor helps provide a discreet way of disposing of small amounts of food at a time. Its unique right-angled triangular shape helps it easily fit into a corner of your kitchen, and its tall design makes it easy to remove the waste-bin and chuck your stuff in without bending over too much. The Alone food-waste processor then proceeds to break down your food, turning it from waste into a harmless, odorless, nutrient-rich fertilizer you can use in your own backyard or kitchen-garden. A heating plate at the base helps accelerate the composting process, breaking food down into a crumbly mulch as little as 30 days (instead of the regular 5-6 months), while an air outlet on the top helps let gases on the inside escape, but not before passing it through a HEPA and Activated Carbon filter to take out those microorganisms and odor molecules, keeping your kitchen odor-free and safe!

Designers: Designer Dot & Hyeona Cho