The Lomi Chronicles: part 1

My love affair with my Lomi composter starts where all the best romances begin: in the aisle of my local Goodwill.

Is it gross to find a used composter at a thrift store? Some would say yes. But I'm sure those people also don't pull recyclables out of the garbage bin and garbage out of the recycling bin. Those are simply not my people.

The First Lomi

I had tried vermicomposting (worm bin composting) in the past with various levels of success. My best attempt was in college when I had plenty of assignments to procrastinate by turning the compost bin and tending to my red wiggler worms, and I had had three absolutely abysmal attempts since then, all of which ended with fruit fly infestations. The fruit flies would not have been a big deal if it was an outdoor bin, but all of my attempts occurred inside my apartments, which was frankly pretty nasty.

The final nail in the coffin of my vermicomposting attempts was a moisture balance issue in the bin, leading to a mass murder of every worm in the bin except for one. That incident occurred about a month before that fateful day in Goodwill where I bought my new electric composter (for $10!), and immediately brought it home.

When I got home, I started doing some research on the Lomi. How it worked, what to put in it, etc. Pela (the parent company, known for their compostable phone cases), has a ton of videos showing people how to use the machine. Their marketing is great, if slightly off-putting (all the videos insist on referring to the machine in the third person, i.e. "now we put the scraps in Lomi). Overall, though, it's very helpful.

In addition to Pela's marketing for the Lomi, I also found a lot of discussion about the machine on online forums. It was very negative, calling the machine "a glorified bread-maker," complaining about the plastic composition and energy usage of the machine, and pointing out that the end-product of the Lomi is closer to fertilizer than it is to compost. These are all valid points to raise, but as the goal of this blog is to recognize the unnecessary burden of perfection we place on sustainability efforts, I wanted to evaluate the claims and share my own experience using the Lomi composter.

Welcome to The Lomi Chronicles. I hope you enjoy!