Composting is a seemingly simple solution that all of us could participate in to help reduce the amount of food waste that enters the landfill. However, we offer plenty of excuses not to do it, like our available space or the smell. Enter the Subpod. This startup is producing mini composting units that are buried directly into your garden, keeping it out of sight — and smell.
The Subpod Mini is capable of composting up to 22 lbs of food per week, which is impressive considering its small size (16.93″ high by 19.45″ wide and 17.72″ deep). What makes this composting system different than other traditional models is that it is inserted directly into a garden bed and functions as a worm farm. It requires the same amount of effort as a traditional system, as the user’s job is only to dump composting scraps into the unit. From here, the worms and microbes in the soil do the work of breaking down the scraps. A head of lettuce takes roughly seven days to breakdown in the Subpod Mini.
One slight downside to this setup is that worms are required for it to work. Approximately 500 composting worms must be purchased separately, which can be found locally or online for about $40-$50.
Roughly 108 billion pounds of food is wasted each year in America, which is a lot of extra (and unnecessary) weight in our landfills. In addition to reducing the amount of food in landfills, composting can also reduce methane emissions, and increase water retention and carbon sequestration when added to the soil. A German-based startup called Kalea launched an in-home composter that converts food scraps to compost in 48 hours, but the appliance will set you back $889 USD. Vitamix also released an in-home composter that is compact enough to fit on a counter, and it is priced more affordably at $399.
It’s great the startups all over the globe are offering different equipment to deal with food waste on an individual level. There are a growing number of options to choose from for managing food waste, but it seems to come down to simply getting people to commit to composting. For those who are interested in composting, the Subpod Mini is available at a reduced pre-order price of $119 for a limited time. Pre-orders are expected to ship out in June 2021.
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