Lomi Indoor Mixer Review: Is This Miracle?

I am a convert. My wife pushes the composting machine in the house. Since we live on a boat and space is high, it took me a while to get the idea. She was right.

The Pela Earth’s Lomi composter represents a real breakthrough in the ease of use and convenience of home composting, and at the same time it solves a huge problem when it comes to the inevitable food waste associated with our two young children. What it does is still like magic to me: With a combination of heat, agitation, and possibly pixie dust (I suppose), it turns a container full of food waste into a tiny handful of dirt. can be used for only a few hours.

Is a home composter right for you? To answer that question, we’ll walk you through the details of using Lomi, which I’ve been doing every day for the past month.

How it works

Serious. MAGIC.

Okay, not really.

Lomi speeds up the composting process by using heat and abrasion to break down food waste, approved bioplastics and packaging. The Lomi cycle is a multi-step process in a small machine, designed to mimic natural composting at every stage.

The first stage is grinding. Naturally, you’ll hear this, and it’s worth mentioning here that the Lomi makes some noise. There’s nothing you can’t chat about, like a bread machine on kneading mode. But crushing is essential to the composting process. Smaller pieces of food are easier to break down than larger ones, as the aeration and increased surface area make it easier for microorganisms to break down the waste.

Also: I tested the Insta360 Go 2 action camera on my WWII-era sailboat. It blew me away

Next, a cycle of heating and cooling begins to break down the food. The machine mimics the thermophilic (moderate temperature), thermophilic (high temperature phase) and cooling phases of nature, but it is completed in a few hours compared to nature which takes months. Internal sensors ensure proper humidity, warm temperatures and plenty of oxygen for natural decomposition. The three Lomi modes — Eco-Express, Grow and Lomi Approved — do this at different speeds, impacting the final product and what you can do with it.

My kids are, at least, attached to the magic story. They nicknamed Lomi “The Food Crush Princess” and they loved giving her their unwanted leftovers.

Setup and form factor

This appliance is not small, which is something to consider when there is limited counter space. Since we didn’t have space on the counter to talk on board the Lindy, our WWII schooner, we left ours under the table in our shop. That makes it convenient to deposit leftovers from the inevitable busy weekday breakfast followed by the rush to school.

Also: How to stop food waste

Before using Lomi for the first time, you need to pour activated carbon into the two filters that come with the device. Charcoal pellets pose a threat if dropped, leaving black streaks on anything they touch. Pouring them into Lomi’s filter isn’t complicated, but I found it hard not to make a mess thanks to the coal dust.

Charcoal should be changed every three months to keep Lomi smelling fresh. It’s an additional cost that potential buyers should be aware of. At the time of this writing, a 90-cycle charcoal supply from Pela Earth costs about $50 with subscription (or about $55 without it).

Once you have coal, you just plug the Lomi in and you’re in business.

Using Lomi

This is a real revelation for me. Like many consumers trying to be environmentally conscious and sometimes flawed, I find myself wincing every time I throw food waste in the trash.

A big part of the problem is that there is no food waste program in the Marina del Rey neighborhood where we live, which means that food waste most often ends up in landfill. As Pela Earth is quick to point out, food waste is the most common material landfilled and incinerated in the United States, including 24% and 22% amount of municipal solid waste buried and burned. And 50% volume waste that North America sends to landfill per year is compostable material.

Lomi is an alternative to throwing food waste in the trash.

Also: How to cut your grocery bill by shopping online

Basically, we use it as a trash can for food and green trash. It lives under our table, and whenever the kids can’t be drawn to finish a meal or have shells or crumbs left over from dinner prep, it’s all gone. When the bin is about 75% full, delineated inside by a squiggly line, we run Lomi, which is as easy as pressing a button.

We usually run the Lomi in Eco-Express mode, which takes about 3-5 hours. Because the resulting product has so much less mass than what we put in, we leave dirt behind and pour new food waste on top of it. Lomi recommends running no more than three cycles for each full bucket.

Lomi recommends adding a mixture of different food wastes. This is a useful incident of different items are allowed in general and in different modes.

Which mode to use?

There are three modes, fast eco, Lomi approvedand Grow up. The distinction is important and helps illustrate exactly what you’re doing with Lomi. (Hint, it’s not compost.)

Also: Google Maps brings ‘eco-friendly’ driving to more routes

Eco-Express mode is the fastest and takes about 3-5 hours. You can add the resulting dirt to your green bin or do what we do and add it to the next cycle you run with Lomi.

Lomi approved: This mode is for food waste, bioplastics and Lomi approved packaging and products. Lomi recommends using the LomiPod in this mode, which adds beneficial bacteria to help support the bioplastic degradation process. This mode takes about 5-8 hours. The resulting dirt can be thrown in the green bin, but like Eco-Express dirt, it is not rich in microorganisms and should not be used on crops.

Development mode: This mode is only used with vegetable waste. So no cooked or processed foods and no bioplastics. This mode utilizes low heat to preserve microorganisms. Lomi recommends adding the LomiPod in this mode. The benefit is that the resulting dirt can be mixed with garden soil or house soil. Lomi recommends a soil ratio of 1:10.

How much energy does Lomi use?

Pela Earth reports that Lomi uses between 0.6 and 1.0 kWh per cycle. Here’s a graph that provides power usage statistics for each mode.

Green washing or green washing?

Indoor composters are not without controversy, and a big question is whether Lomi really offers ecological benefits or is this just a green wash gimmick.

Remember, the big environmental benefit of composting is reducing the amount of food waste that ends up in landfills. The crux of the skepticism is that Lomi uses a certain amount of energy to turn food waste into dirt, potentially nullifying any positive effects.

Also: How the best affordable electric cars and federal tax credits can save you $7,500

Lomi has actively countered this perception by using third-party services to determine if Lomi Dirty will offset the power needs of running the appliance. Experimental factors in variables include whether the house uses renewable energy (e.g. solar) and what people do with dirt at the end of the cycle (e.g. use plant it in the backyard, put it in a green bin, or send it to a landfill).

From the company’s website:

With the help of our third party audit, we found that despite electricity consumption, Lomi can produce a lower net carbon footprint than similar organic waste that would be landfilled.

You can read more about The results of the tests are herebut the bottom line is net CO2e savings of about 100 kg to 230 CO2e per year, depending on your usage pattern.

bottom line

We use it every day. As I sit and type this, Lomi has just completed another cycle. So for us, the bottom line is that this product is a big win.

Is it right for you? Look, ideally you don’t generate the same amount of food waste as we do. (And we’ll do our best not to, I promise!) If you live somewhere with a patio or shared space nearby, it’s probably a good idea to explore composting options first. ordinary feces. They will be cheaper and more environmentally friendly. Lomi can be used successfully in conjunction with a conventional composter, but that is not our use case and you will have to determine if it is worth your money.

But if you live in an apartment or other small space, such as our boat, and if food waste is an issue for you, I definitely recommend Lomi. It’s expensive, but it quickly becomes the device you didn’t know you needed. Pela Earth is an environmentally conscious and Certified Climate Neutral company, and Lomi is a powerful product that looks set to continue to function as expected for a long time.

If you’re tight on space and need to improve your food waste, the Lomi is a great solution.

Alternatives to consider

Slightly cheaper than the Lomi, this is a comparable product in a different form factor.

The big brother of the traditional outdoor composter, if you have the space and the waste, this is a big growing machine.