Trying out “Lomi” by Pela

Watching Back to the Future 2 growing up, I remember being struck by the scene near the beginning of the movie where Doc Brown appears from the future and immediately starts dumping household trash (including various food waste) into the DeLorean's fusion reactor for energy. I've always found food waste disgusting, so the idea of being able to take this gross garbage and get something useful out stuck with me (even if I knew it was fiction even back then). While portable fusion reactors running on trash are sadly still not available, I was immediately reminded of that scene when I came across a company called Pela last year and their new device they were taking pre-orders for, called simply “Lomi.”

Lomi is a…well, I suppose it could be described as an “active composter.” It's a device about the size of a bread machine into which you can put food waste, paper, approved bioplastics, etc., and over the course of 4–20 hours (depending on which of three modes is chosen) it breaks it down into dirt. (Pela advise that only dirt from the longest cycle should be directly given to plants, but even the shorter two cycles get the contents a significant amount of the way, and can then be composted naturally the rest of the way.) Last month Pela started shipping out units to North America (with a global availability scheduled for September), and this past week mine arrived!

And here it is in action! Not much to look at, admittedly…

I was able to get it setup over the weekend and try it out, and it really does work! Eggshells, asparagus ends, some old wilted leaves from the brassicas in my Farmstand, the bioplastic packaging Lomi comes in, some random paper, all these things left in the ~2 liter bucket ended up as a small pile of dry dirt at the bottom. It performs a cycle of grinding up and warming what you give it to encourage speedy microbial decomposition (they include small optional pellets containing a blend of microbes you can add for optimum results), followed by a hotter drying cycle to leave you with nice clean dry dirt rather than half-decomposed sludge.

Living in a rental apartment like I do with no place outside to compost, I was really happy to hear about Lomi and I'm excited it lives up to its advertising. (I know there are various indoor composting solutions, but I just don't really feel like leaving a bunch of decomposing food waste around in my house.) Being able to compost food waste means it's not sitting around in the trash (potentially attracting critters), and a lower volume of trash in general. Plus, I've been thinking of expanding my indoor gardening to encompass growing some root vegetables like potatoes and carrots in soil (since those don't really work well in hydroponics), and the compost from Lomi would be an ideal way to recycle food waste into plant nutrients. I've been waiting on my Lomi delivery to see how that'd work before setting anything up, but now that Lomi's up and running I might have to see about expanding my farming operations in the near future…

Anyway, just thought I'd share my experience with Lomi. The promised ability to quickly and non-messily turn food waste into nice clean dirt and ready plant nutrients seemed almost too good to be true, so here's my testimonial to other prospective buyers. And hopefully before too long I'll be turning food waste into tasty tubers or other vegetables! A hui hou!

Paging Dr. Berke!

It's been very quiet on the blog front for a few weeks now, but I have some good news: as of February 17, my revised thesis was accepted, making me officially a doctor! And yes, that was three days before my last post. I've been kept very busy since then because, though officially "done" with my PhD, I'm not yet truly done. Mainly because of the two papers which made up my thesis have yet to be published, and need to be submitted before March 25th to support a companion proposal (by my advisor and the group I worked with, to continue on with the larger project). There are a few bureaucratic formalities to finish up as well to receive my diploma, but I am officially allowed to the use the title "Dr." from when I got the announcement.

I should be able to have the papers submitted by the deadline, as they're almost done except for changing one plot and a minor bit of rewriting, but it's kept me occupied in evenings and weekends—which, after a day (or week) of work, is not exactly my most productive time. I'm certainly looking forward to having these papers done and some free time to get back to more interesting creative pursuits, which should spill over into more posts here. In the meantime, I should get back to work on them. A hui hou!