Electric Kitchen “Composter” Confusion
Molding and plant growth trials, along with product characteristic analyses, were done with output from two different kitchen food waste dehydrator units and compared to “real” compost.
By Ron Alexander
BioCycle
Sept 25, 2023
Excerpt:
While the kitchen and commercial food dehydration devices show promise in managing the logistics of food recovery and recycling, as well as reducing the “ick” factor, it does not appear (with few exceptions as discussed above) that nearly enough work has been completed to figure out the management and final disposition of the resulting product. Cavalierly calling the product “compost” (or inferring it is compost by marketing the unit as a “composter”), soil amendment, fertilizer or dirt without completing the due diligence related to its end use is risky and can greatly hurt the reputation of real compost (as well as the food dehydration devices).
My limited field trials also identified negative effects of using the dehydrated food material in soil blends as far as moisture acceptance and drainage, which are problematic in seed germination, plant establishment and growth. All in all, it appears that much more research is required to understand the efficacious end use of the dehydrated food materials. And it certainly appears inappropriate to call the resulting materials produced from these electric dehydration units “compost”, so it is misleading — especially for consumers who would like to make compost at home — to call the technologies “composters.”
