Laughably, Excel Industries sells a composter claiming to compost in 2 MINUTES ! (apart from Excel machines claiming to compost in 24 hours / 10 days).
There are many other companies in India making similar claims - for example Alfa-Therm sells machines claiming to compost in 24 hours / 10 days.
All of these machines are SCAMS, claiming to compost in 2 minutes / 24 hours / 10 days. Here is why i say this :
1. No scientific study in the world claims to complete composting of organics in less than 2 weeks.
2. Even where machines have been used for composting in a few cases in the west, the wet waste undergoes processing INSIDE the machine from 10 - 14 days ATLEAST. After that it undergoes further curing outside for some weeks.
Please note that such a length of time to compost is far more than the manual aerobic process employed in revolving drum composting, where composting AND curing are completed in 20 days after the bin is full.
3. ALL studies say that no shredding is required for kitchen wet wastes so one of the claimed functions of these machines is useless for this purpose. Studies ALSO say that no enhancers are needed for kitchen wastes which are teeming with microbial life. So this so-called function of these machines is also not of any use.
4. Some of these machines provide artificial heating for composting which is a ridiculous proposition - when massed together, wet wastes with free flow of oxygen around them, teem with microbial life NATURALLY.
In manual composting, the compost pile heats up within the first 4-5 days from the activity of numerous organisms breaking down organic matter - temperatures are typically over 50 degrees C when manual composting is done right.
5. Finally, the machines claim to mix all the wet wastes together - but they do it only during the duration of the wet waste in the machine which is only 2 min / 20 min / 24 hours.
Mixing - which forces oxygen through the wet wastes, increasing microbial activity, is required throughout the composting operation. Only the revolving drum process achieves that, not ANY of these machines.
6. The machines are NOT labour saving at all - the 10 day composting machine demands labour add only 55 kgs to it at a time, wait for 20 minutes, then cart the effluent from the machine in several baskets to a curing rack. This is not needed in a manual aerobic revolving drum process - once you put the wet wastes in, they only come out fully usable.
One wonders what half-baked 'compost' will result at the end of 10 days as there is no daily mixing of wastes unlike in revolving drum system (the baskets in the machine system stay stationary).
7. Further, in the 10 day machine system, the stationary baskets are automatically sprayed with water every 90 min, or so the company literature says. That is an astonishing step to take : wet kitchen wastes require NO water addition, studies say.
In fact all this extra water addition will create anaerobic conditions which will :
A. Halt aerobic composting.
B. Give rise to methane gas which is the same as PNG supplied in pipes for cooking across Delhi and surrounding towns. Methane is highly inflammable - which is why dumpsites across india where wet wastes are dumped, are always on fire.
C. Produce ammonia, which is a highly irritating gas with a pungent, suffocating odor.
D. Produce some half-done wet mass in the end which cannot compare with aerobically produced compost which does enormous good to soils.
Aerobic manual composting done right produces no smell, no nuisance, and quickly converts wet wastes into compost. No power is needed and very simple equipment made from recycled wastes suffices.
In contrast, these machines, especially the 24 hour composting ones, use humongous amounts of power, which flies against the need to bring down electricity use - to save India from heating up due to coal burning.
The machines can also end up burning plastic wastes alongside wet wastes during heating, releasing noxious cancerous fumes. But even the machine variants that claim to not heat the wet wastes, do not follow scientific composting guidelines.
Aerobic composting is important for saving the earth from heating up as well - a set of recent studies showed that compared to the current dumping of wet wastes (shown in blue), aerobic composting will result in a massive amount of less carbon in the air (shown in green) over 20 years.
That is because the present dumping of wet wastes is generating a high proportion of methane, 30 times as effective at warming earth as CO2. The wet waste dumping is also generating a huge amount of nitrous oxide gas, which is 300 TIMES as effective as CO2 at warming the planet.
In fact, if all the presently dumped organic wet wastes were AEROBICALLY composted, that would result in the sequestering (capture from air) of a huge amount of CO2 as well.
While the study pertained to California, it surely has implications for the rest of the world.
There are many other companies in India making similar claims - for example Alfa-Therm sells machines claiming to compost in 24 hours / 10 days.
All of these machines are SCAMS, claiming to compost in 2 minutes / 24 hours / 10 days. Here is why i say this :
1. No scientific study in the world claims to complete composting of organics in less than 2 weeks.
2. Even where machines have been used for composting in a few cases in the west, the wet waste undergoes processing INSIDE the machine from 10 - 14 days ATLEAST. After that it undergoes further curing outside for some weeks.
Please note that such a length of time to compost is far more than the manual aerobic process employed in revolving drum composting, where composting AND curing are completed in 20 days after the bin is full.
3. ALL studies say that no shredding is required for kitchen wet wastes so one of the claimed functions of these machines is useless for this purpose. Studies ALSO say that no enhancers are needed for kitchen wastes which are teeming with microbial life. So this so-called function of these machines is also not of any use.
4. Some of these machines provide artificial heating for composting which is a ridiculous proposition - when massed together, wet wastes with free flow of oxygen around them, teem with microbial life NATURALLY.
In manual composting, the compost pile heats up within the first 4-5 days from the activity of numerous organisms breaking down organic matter - temperatures are typically over 50 degrees C when manual composting is done right.
5. Finally, the machines claim to mix all the wet wastes together - but they do it only during the duration of the wet waste in the machine which is only 2 min / 20 min / 24 hours.
Mixing - which forces oxygen through the wet wastes, increasing microbial activity, is required throughout the composting operation. Only the revolving drum process achieves that, not ANY of these machines.
6. The machines are NOT labour saving at all - the 10 day composting machine demands labour add only 55 kgs to it at a time, wait for 20 minutes, then cart the effluent from the machine in several baskets to a curing rack. This is not needed in a manual aerobic revolving drum process - once you put the wet wastes in, they only come out fully usable.
One wonders what half-baked 'compost' will result at the end of 10 days as there is no daily mixing of wastes unlike in revolving drum system (the baskets in the machine system stay stationary).
7. Further, in the 10 day machine system, the stationary baskets are automatically sprayed with water every 90 min, or so the company literature says. That is an astonishing step to take : wet kitchen wastes require NO water addition, studies say.
In fact all this extra water addition will create anaerobic conditions which will :
A. Halt aerobic composting.
B. Give rise to methane gas which is the same as PNG supplied in pipes for cooking across Delhi and surrounding towns. Methane is highly inflammable - which is why dumpsites across india where wet wastes are dumped, are always on fire.
C. Produce ammonia, which is a highly irritating gas with a pungent, suffocating odor.
D. Produce some half-done wet mass in the end which cannot compare with aerobically produced compost which does enormous good to soils.
Aerobic manual composting done right produces no smell, no nuisance, and quickly converts wet wastes into compost. No power is needed and very simple equipment made from recycled wastes suffices.
In contrast, these machines, especially the 24 hour composting ones, use humongous amounts of power, which flies against the need to bring down electricity use - to save India from heating up due to coal burning.
The machines can also end up burning plastic wastes alongside wet wastes during heating, releasing noxious cancerous fumes. But even the machine variants that claim to not heat the wet wastes, do not follow scientific composting guidelines.
That is because the present dumping of wet wastes is generating a high proportion of methane, 30 times as effective at warming earth as CO2. The wet waste dumping is also generating a huge amount of nitrous oxide gas, which is 300 TIMES as effective as CO2 at warming the planet.
In fact, if all the presently dumped organic wet wastes were AEROBICALLY composted, that would result in the sequestering (capture from air) of a huge amount of CO2 as well.
While the study pertained to California, it surely has implications for the rest of the world.
Great study. I compliment you for writing this bold blog.
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