NatureMill

First batch of compost produced.

3 months in and the new indoor composting machine has produced it's first batch of compost. As you will see from the photo's below the resulting compost is dry, soil like and easy to handle.

It's fair to say that I could have 'harvested' compost before now but I decided to wait until it had reached the 'full' line marked on the inside of the machine. Quite impressive that the composting machine has managed to reduce 2 peoples food waste over 3 months to such a small volume and probably hints at the richness of the finished product.

Removing the finished compost from the machine was easy. The internal 'lid' is removed leaving plenty of room to access the compost with the trowel provided with the machine. In the end I used some plastic container and scooped out the compost directly. In the end the machine produces approximately 4 litres of compost over 3 months. I took the opportunity to clean the lid section with a damp cloth. "Jobs a good un".

I decided to use it to boost my lavender plants and I've sprinkled it around their bases being careful to avoid the leaves. I'll report back on how it goes.

Fast decomposition of food to compost.


The new indoor composter continues to work well. Food goes in and the next time I open the lid it's disappeared with only a small increase in the volume of compost to show for it. We've mostly been feeding it with left overs from cooking and out of date food from the Fridge.

Most impressive has been the speed at which the unit has reduced potatoes, 24 hours and there was little to show for them. I chopped them down to prevent them jamming the mixer and that was that. The 'mix' in the unit has stayed dry and I notice that the 'fresh air' light comes on automatically from time to time.

Here are a couple of photo's showing the speed at which the unit is working. They were taken 3 or 4 hours apart after a fridge clear out:





If you are interested in pre ordering a unit drop me an email:

david@mediacopy.co.uk

3 weeks into the test of our new indoor home bio digester \ composting machine the news is good

We've been feeding the machine waste food from the kitchen and fridge and there is almost nothing to report. Food goes in & disappears ! The resulting compost mix is dry and there are no unpleasant smells or leaks.

The 'mix' of food waste has been a selection of salad, old vegetables and out of date pasta and rice. I can't say we've put the maximum amount through the machine but it's easily coped with our needs so far. For instance a 1kg bag of new potatoes that had gone to seed were reduced to almost nothing in the space of a day or two supporting the manufacturers claim that waste is reduced in volume by 90%

Uncooked dry rice takes longer but that's to be expected.

So far it looks as if it will be at least another month or more before we'll need to remove compost from the machine. Photo's to follow later.

All in all 'Boringly' effective !!!

The Sunday Times reports that local authorities will be encouraged to collect food waste and may charge households for the privilege.

After the new Indoor Composter arrived we were keen to see how well it worked.


The start-up procedure was very simple. The machine arrived with a bag of 'starter' agent containing the bacteria which will break down the food waste. This appeared to be dry compost. The instructions say to add sugar and water to the dry mix and leave for 24 hours before adding any waste.





7 days in and I'm glad to report all is well. The 'compost' in the unit is dry. The small amount of food added so far has been broken down and the unit is seemingly smell free !

The manufacturer suggests that waste food should be broken down to 10% of it's original volume in around 24 hours and so far that seems to be about right. The only thing that appears to be 'hanging around' is some fresh pasta I added which was past it's sell by date in the fridge.

To be fair the manufacturer suggests that it takes a week or so for the bacteria in the machine to mature and multiply to full strength so we've only added a small amount of fresh waste, mostly consisting of coffee grinds and bread.

So, after 1 weeks operation, so far so good

If you are interested in ordering a Home Bio Composter please get in touch. The initial plan is to bring in small batches of units as demand builds.

Good news on the Indoor composting front.

A couple of months ago a manufacturer from the Far East contacted me about their new Indoor Composting machine, and after some deliberation I've invested in a test unit which has just arrived from the Far East.

First impressions are very good. The quality of manufacture appears excellent, and much more in the 'white goods' style than the NatureMill with a steel housing and high quality mouldings for it's plastic and rubber parts. It's larger than the nature mill, similar to a mini fridge, and it arrived with a 3 pin UK plug, ready to go. The unit is designed for 3-4 people, composting up to 1.5kg of food waste per day.

The unit is designed to be fast acting - composting waste in 24 hours using a Bio "fermentative" method of composting, which reduced waste volume by 90 - 95%. According to the designers it uses just 80 W/h and it's operation should be odourless, as evidenced by rubber seals and a catalytic deodorizing feature acting on the air outlet. The output 'compost' is very rich and can be reduced down 1:3 with garden soil to use in the garden.

The retail price of the unit is unclear until we gain an idea of demand. If you are interested let me know. david@mediacopy.co.uk

Well, our NatureMill is no more. Or at least no more with us.

Our original test unit has been sold on and we've no more plans to persevere with the units. It's a shame as the concept is good and the technology required relativly simple but I can't say it really worked for us.

We're still interested in finding and marketing a domestic indoor composting unit, so if you have one let me know !

email: david@mediacopy.co.uk

Quick update. The second "clipfix" failed and compost would not transfer from the upper to the lower chamber. I've just received my 3rd 'fix' from NatureMill and will fit is soonest. Update to follow so Fingers crossed.

This week I visited a 'Sustainability' show at the NEC Birmingham and came across a stand dealing in 'starter' bacteria, usually for septic tanks. I picked up a sample pack and will add a pinch when I restart the NatureMill. The company was confident it would make a big difference to the composting process.

Looks like the 'clip fix' failed. The unit still refuses to transfer waste from the top chamber to the collection tray.

The issue seems to be the design of the clips. The new ones have been bent over by the mixing arm, but the arm needs to catch on the clips when it transfers.

NatureMill are aware of the problem and have some new clips in development and in an email they have promised to ship me free replacement ones when they are ready. However they are not due until August so it looks like the NatureMill experiment is on hold for a few weeks.

I'll update you all when they come through.

This weekend I replaced the broken clips which had caused a problem with the NatureMill. The machine had stopped transferring waste from the top compartment to the bottom.

The replacement clips arrived via UPS from the States, sent directly from the clip manufacturer. NatureMill had emailed me the instructions for replacement. Before starting the repair I dumped it's contents on our compost heap and hosed the machine down to try and make the job as pleasant as possible.

The instructions were mostly fine, and taking the machine apart went OK. The only 'issue' was how the new clips actually fitted. The old ones had completely broken and there was no hint as to how the new ones went in. In the end I had to refer back to the photo's I took when the unit arrived and luckily there was one which gave the answer.

Fitting the clips was OK once I'd managed to free up the trap door. The main thing is not to accidentally throw out the small plastic grommets which help secure the clips with a friction fit. The instructions also suggest ensuring the trapdoor 'arms' are parallel, so I checked and bent them as required.

Reassembly is disassembly in reverse. Because I'd hosed the unit down I decided to restart the composting process from scratch and I reset the NatureMill when I powered it up. I added some chippings and soil and eventually the machine went in to 'Mix' mode. The the clips seem to have held OK.

The real test will be if the transfer function works and how long the clips last for. 4 months is the record so far. Fingers crossed !

Good news on the Nature Mill. I've been testing the unit with an alternative to the saw dust I bought after the saw dust pellets which shipped with the machine ran out.

When the original pellets ran out I popped down the local pet shop and picked up a bag of sawdust for pet bedding. However it seems that this type of sawdust isn't helping the smell issues I've been having with the Nature Mill. I'm unsure as to why, other than perhaps its pine softwood.

During the Winter I had a couple of big Pear trees behind the house heavily pruned and the Ivy removed. The job left behind a large pile of finely cut wood chippings which have started to compost down. So I fed the Nature Mill with a couple hand fulls from the chippings pile and the results have been encouraging. A smell is still there when the lid is opened but it's a bit more pleasant.

The bad news is that the machine has stopped transferring from the top chamber to the bottom one which means that I've not been able to test the wood chippings over a full cycle. I found a broken clip which must the the cause of the problem.

The good news is that the Nature Mill company in the US have been very helpful and redesigned replacement clips are on their way. The guys emailed the instructions for replacing them but it looks a messy job as the unit has to come apart.

I'll let you know how it goes . . . . .

It's been a few weeks since my last NatureMill update. The main reason for this is that I've had little positive to report.

Since restarting the machine in February after our holidays I've not been able to get it working 'as advertised'.

There are 2 issues, the main one being the smell. While most of the time the machine does not smell, boy does it pong when you put something in. The other problem is condensation which results in wet compost and gets into the air filter, which possibly contributes to making the smell worse.

I've contacted the NatureMill guys in the USA for guidance on several occasions, but the response is much same each time "Add more sawdust and baking soda". Just to be sure I've reset the machine, started the 'cultures' from fresh with soil from the garden and left it to settle for a week with out adding food.

According to the instructions you need to add 2 tablespoons of baking soda and a couple of hand fulls of sawdust at the start of each compost batch. I'm adding sawdust and baking soda pretty much every other time we add waste. As there are just 2 of us we don't produce much, adding mostly bread, some peelings or veg that's gone over in the fridge. With light use compared to a family the extra sawdust and soda seems a little excessive, and worse seems to make no difference.

We have produced a few batches of compost, but it looks nothing like the compost in the NatureMill video. It's wet and I'd be loathed to put my hands in it. I've been adding it to my garden compost bins to kick start the grass clippings but it's too early to say if it helps.

All in all at $300 the NatureMill has been disappointing. I'll carry on using it, as the smell is not too much of a problem in our Veranda (and I can't very well ship it back to the states) but I could not recommend having one in a kitchen or small apartment. In our experience the pong will be too much !

Before the NatureMill arrived we used a low-tech solution, a mini bin from Ikea. The lid seems airtight, there were no smells, and it held our green waste until the weekend when I added it to the garden compost bin. Best of all it offers a saving of $290 over a NatureMill

Lot's of cooked food waste ? Buy Chickens ?

Well, the second batch of NatureMill compost is on my vegetable patch waiting to the dug in.

Unfortunately I had to start the NatureMill from scratch after our recent holiday. While we were away the unit was accidentally switched off which put a stop to the composting Bactria as the machine cooled down. On our return I reset the NatureMill and started from scratch, but keeping the existing batch half composted waste in the machine. The result was a second batch of compost which was quite wet.

I've got high hopes for the next batch and having re-read the instructions I've done a couple of things which should improve the performance of the machine:

* Added far more Sawdust (bought from a petshop) and Baking Soda to keep the optimum balance for the composting Bactria to offset the Bread, Lettuce, Citrus fruit & Potato combination of food we've been feeding the NatureMill.

* Leveled the machine to offset the uneven floor in our pantry and ensure the NatureMill Drains correctly.

A little history !

Russ Cohn, inventor and developer of NatureMill started the NatureMill indoor composting project back in 2003. The product has been evolving and improving ever since. Here is an interview with back in 2004 giving an overview of the early development and testing process:

www.howtocompost.org/naturemill.asp


A year later Russ did a follow-up in interview explaining how initial customer feedback led the development of the NatureMill :

www.howtocompost.org/naturemill05.asp

The photo on the page shows the old "mark 1" machine which is quite different to the current design.

UK Energy Saving - The UK Energy Saving website gives information and tips on ways to save energy and also how to save money on household bills.