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Comment by lm28469 | Hacker News Reader

Why get an electric powered gadget made of plastic and proprietary soft/hardware that will 100% for sure end in a dump in less than 20 years when all you need is a good ol compost bin?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bXZG-kzlhPY

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Lomi doesn't really "compost" your scraps, it dehydrates and grinds them. The actual compost activity happens (on an accelerated timeline, due to the pre-processing) in the soil you amend with your Lomi "compost." It's good marketing though

Space is the main reason. We live in the city and the amount of organic waste we (family of 4 + numerous pets) produce is staggering. additionally meat attracts animals. This I run an overnight cycle and I can add it to my compost heap and let it degrade more and no issues with rodents and other animals who dig through food waste. after using this device, in the future I would always grind/break up my organic waste as fine as possible just to save space.

I was originally pretty skeptical of the Lomi as well after seeing this very same video. But my friend got us one and we have been using it for a while now. Sure, it has the same parts as a breadmaker, and it's mostly just drying out and cutting down the organic material into more useful sizes, exactly like he says, but when you put in the enzymes and have it run its dirt cycle it does actually produce meaningfully good compost all with much lower footprint a garden composting setup. I'm not sure I'd pay to buy one new, but but it's not a scam.

Just remember that any positive effect you might achieve by a lifetime of composting is grossly negated by the production, usage, and inevitable way to the landfill of this thing. Startups like these are part of the problem, not the solution.

That could be true, but maybe OP's goal isn't making a positive impact on the global scale.

Just throw your scrapes and buy compost then, it'll be cheaper and easier. The city already transforms bio waste in gas and compost anyways, and much more efficiently than what you can do at home given the scale.

This is another "I'm doing my part" gimmick that solves literally nothing when you look under the hood

our city has no bio waste. we make all our own dried fruit, eat mostly fresh from market (so little to no plastic for our veggies), but an immense amount of organic waste.

You're not wrong. I think people just like to feel like they're doing their part, even if it's not actually a net benefit.

it allows us to get all our organic and bio plastic waste for a big family with pets, including most bones once we have cooked stock from it, in a compost heap in the city.

we tried composting before and the volume of organic waste we produced was too much and we had to dispose a lot of our waste in general trash (our location has no organic waste disposal that runs in our neighborhood) meant animals ripped our curb side bags open.

I am not a degrowther to save the planet either, so a company putting compostable products in place of plastic ones seems like good economic activity.

Only if you're using bad math and discounting the impact of the retail compost and fertilizer offset by these devices.

These devices reach impact parity in a few years (2 to 10 depending on the electronics and how much they're used).

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