Lomi Review: A Great Countertop Composter If You Have the Space | appleinsider (2023)

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The Lomi da Pela Tabletop Composter brings the eco-friendly practice of backyard composting to your home.

Lomi is a countertop composter for food waste disposal that also promises to keep your houseplants happy and reduce your carbon footprint. The idea is from Pela, manufacturer of a biodegradable line of cell phone covers and accessoriesIphoneand other Apple devices.

Why you shouldn't throw leftover food in the trash

Before we get started, let's address the biggest problem Lomi aims to solve: food waste.

Most people assume that food waste is safe enough to throw away. Eventually, organic matter breaks down, as we all know. We've all forgotten a banana on the counter at least once.

Believe it or not, food waste doesn't always end up in the landfill, and when it does, it doesn't always go as smoothly as possible.

Landfills are anaerobic environments, ecosystems that do not have enough oxygen to undergo the "normal" biodegradation process.

When organic materials, especially food and yard waste, are landfilled, they quickly become buried by other layers of trash. So without oxygen and without light, much of the organic matter rots.

When it finally breaks down, it releases methane. While some landfills have begun to capture methane for power generation, many have not.

Composting leftovers, on the other hand, is much better for the environment. Traditionally, composting requires a mix of nitrogen-rich ("green") and carbon-rich ("brown") waste, which breaks down over time into a nutrient-rich material that you can use to supplement your garden.

This is usually done on outdoor cuttings that are watered regularly and then turned over with a pitchfork or shovel to provide oxygen and distribute heat evenly. It's a labor-intensive process, but it significantly benefits the environment and the person who cares for the compost pile.

But not everyone can maintain a compost pile, and that's where lomi comes in.

what is lomi

Lomi is a "bench composter". Desktop composters are machines designed to simulate the early stages of composting.

What we like most about Lomi is that it was designed with users in mind and is extremely easy to use.

To use Lomi, open the lid, pour your organic waste into the Lomi bucket, press a button, and you're done.

It then shreds the waste and adds some heat, which helps start the composting process. The process takes from 3 to 20 hours, and the result depends on what you write and the mode you are using.

Plus, Lomi also looks better than most countertop compounds. Its contemporary design is easy to use and could easily be mistaken for a humidifier or similar appliance.

configure Lomi

Setting up Lomi is extremely easy. Just open the two filter chambers, fill them with activated carbon tablets and put them back.

Later, Lomi encourages him to throw away the biodegradable plastic bags that contained the charcoal in his first cycle.

Depending on usage, activated carbon should be replaced every three to four months. Selling a subscription that will send you the pellets. While this is helpful, we want to point out that these are the same carbon pellets used in aquariums so you canfind cheaper elsewhere.

What is allowed and what is not in Lomi

Lots of things can fit into Lomi and Pela has made a list of things you can include.

What should never enter Lomi

We will notice that Pela seems to doubt whether or not you can compost meat in Lomi. Sometimes Pela says it's okay, but sometimes it's not.

To be safe, we recommend that you do not throw meat into the lomi if you plan to use it for your houseplants.

what comes out

Now is a good time to talk about what comes out of the lomi after going through a cycle. Lomi has three different cycles to choose from, each resulting in a different type of final product.

Power saving mode: This quick mode is designed to create a perfect material to throw in your compost pile or green bin. Unfortunately, it's not suitable to add to your houseplants because it hasn't broken down enough and doesn't contain enough microbes.

growth mode: A longer, more energy-intensive way that uses a lomi pod, a type of probiotic compound, to create nutrient-rich soil that you can add to your plants at a 1:10 ratio. in your compost pile or bin green .

Lomi Approved Mode: Lomi allows you to break down approved bioplastics, paper products and compostable packaging. This includes cases for Pela phones andFor Apple Watch Bands! The end product of this cycle is perfect for throwing in the green bin or household waste.

how well it works

Lomi works great for what it is. However, we were surprised by Lomi's silence, even when dealing with hard objects like corn on the cob.

Our first batch of compost-ready compost included avocado peels, chile scraps, fallen orchid blossoms, golden pothos scraps, grape stems, some old coconuts from a replanted plant, and the occasional dish scrap.

It consisted of about three days of Lomi-approved material. Larger families are likely to replenish a lomi at least once a day.

Perhaps the best thing about the Lomi is its practical nature, as it is essentially a set it and forget it device. After throwing away the leftovers, you can press the button and you're done.

When he returns, Lomi has quickly worked through his organic matter, leaving behind a brown, mulch-like substance.

We were very impressed with how well Lomi handles odors. The carbon filter helps filter out odors as we run, and for the most part, it doesn't even get particularly gross when we litter throughout the day.

Of course, if you leave food remains inside for a few days, it will smell very bad when you open it. But there is a better solution for this.

Knowing it'll be a while before we fill the Lomi Bucket enough to run a cycle, we stash the leftovers in the freezer; be sure to thaw them in Lomi for a while before running a loop.

What comes out of Lomi doesn't smell bad. Instead, it smells mostly of organic material. Our first batch smelled mostly of straw and a bit of vegetable soup, and the second one smelled faintly of bananas.

Is this really compound?

The material that comes out of the lomi is not the same material that you would get from a traditional compost pile. Rather, it tends to be an immature compound with significant decay remaining before it matures.

For this reason, Lomi recommends mixing it in a ratio of 1 to 10 parts, one part Lomi soil to 10 parts soil, to nourish your plants. Lomi soil will continue to break down as you water your plants and release nutrients into the soil.

Mixing at higher rates can harm your plants, just like any other fertilizer.

If you want to age the final product, many people have found that you can mix it with soil and age it in a location with moderate sun exposure. Since it has already been shredded in the machine, Lomi soil breaks down very quickly in a compost pile, bin, or pail—a few weeks compared to a full season for traditional compost.

Who is Lomi for?

Lomi is designed to reduce food waste for people who don't have access to community-supported composting programs or for those who can't maintain a traditional compost pile.

While it's explicitly targeting apartment dwellers, which is undoubtedly Lomi's core demographic, it's not just for smaller spaces.

For example, we don't live in an area with a community-supported composting program. We don't even have a green trash program - the city expects you to throw your groceries in the trash and take the yard waste out of your bag if it doesn't fit in the trash bag.

And while backyard composting isn't specifically prohibited here, there are some concerns about simply dumping food scraps on the ground. The cats in this area generally run free, we have a groundhog in the neighborhood and there have been occasional bear problems.

So yes, Lomi is geared towards apartment dwellers, but it's not exclusive to apartment dwellers. Many plant owners and lovers can also use Lomi.

Disadvantages

There are some downsides to lomi that are worth considering before you buy.

First of all, it is not a small machine. Lomi has a significant physical footprint and if you have limited space in your home, Lomi may not fit. We couldn't keep Lomi on our countertop without sacrificing food prep space.

Luckily, we have other places for Lomi to live, which means she still fits into our lives pretty well. However, this may not apply to residents of apartments with limited space.

Lomi then needs to use electricity to do his job. Unlike a traditional compost pile, which is heated by the sun, Lomi must be harvested on the grill.

As a result, Lomi has a larger carbon footprint than a traditional compost pile.

In fact, Pela even tells people that they can keep a traditional compost pile to avoid lomi altogether. After all, why would she spend $500 on something that she could make for the cost of a pitchfork and some wire?

Of course, food going to landfill produces methane, a greenhouse gas, which isn't ideal either.

It is estimated that even if Lomi uses non-renewable energy, Lomi can avoid 200 kg of CO2 emissions per year by disposing of food in a landfill, assuming Lomi composts 365 kg of food waste per year. That's a reduction in CO2 emissions of around 80%.

As a side note, if you're concerned about how much it costs to run Lomi, it's not that expensive after all. The average price of electricity in the US is around 14 cents per kWh, which means a Lomi grow cycle should cost around 14 cents.

Eco mode only costs about 8 cents to run.

The only particularly frustrating thing about Lomi is that she doesn't keep quiet. Not the squeak, which is too easy to ignore, but the beep.

Pela jokes about this, saying that "Lomi likes to talk," but we found the beeping to be a major drawback of the device.

They are pious. it is pitymar. It beeps when you open it, beeps when you close it, and beeps when you press buttons. Then when it finishes its cycle it beeps again.

If you spend a lot of time on work calls or have your bedroom, or your children's bedroom, close to the kitchen, this is a major problem. So if Pela releases a Lomi 2.0, we'd like to see the ability to turn off the beep.

After all, it's not cheap. As mentioned above, Lomi costs $500, which might not be an option for many people.

Unfortunately, this is true of all tabletop composters, and many non-electric composters as well.

Vitamix's FoodCycler, a similar machine, sells for around $400, but it doesn't produce a finished product that can be added directly to plants. You cannot refill the FoodCycler filters and they are $40 each.

Hopefully, eventually someone will come up with a product in the $200 range, but until then, Lomi, and its tabletop composting kin, may only be for certain people.

hopes for future releases

If Pela continues to iterate on Lomi, we'd love to see app integration. Lomi is literally begging for this!

We would like an app that offers a countdown to the end of the loop, monitors the filter status, and allows us to quickly check which items can and cannot be added in which modes.

Noisy, eat against, but dirty excellent

Lomi is a great way to keep food waste from going to landfill, giving you a valuable end product. That's true whether you run it exclusively in Eco mode and toss the soil into your compost pile or green bin, or run it in Grow mode to supplement your plants.

While we don't think it's for everyone, we think it still does an important job. And if you're a parent of a plant, there really is nothing better than having your own unlimited supply of fertilizer ready to plant.

Where to buy

If you are looking to make your own lomi you canGo to Amazon.com,Best BuyoSitio Bys. Lomi is $500 and is generally in short supply. We encourage those interested in Lomi to purchase one as soon as it becomes available, as they tend to sell out quickly.

Assessment:3.5 out of 5 stars

Benefits

Disadvantages