GEME Organic Compost Machine – A truly automatic home organic compost machine
A few weeks ago, the GEME team that was running a crowdfunding campaign contacted us to review their organic compost machine. As the composter is pretty big, it took a while to ship and didn’t arrive until last week. Fresh out of the box, it looks a lot like a large air humidifier with a screen and control panel on the front. All accessories and the microorganism kit were stored inside. A user manual is also there to show how to use step by step.
Composting food and other organic waste at home isn’t a new idea. People have been composting household waste at home and use or sell them as fertilizer since ancient times. It is a good and practical way to reduce and reuse wastes that will otherwise cause burden to the landfill or incinerator. However, composting usually generates unpleasant odor and heat during the process, which is unsuitable for apartments and condos.
GEME is therefore designed to fill that market. With built-in tiller, heater and UV sterilizer, it claims to be completely odorless and can process 2kg of organic waste everyday. Let’s see if it is up to its claims.
We start by plugging in the cable of GEME. The screen display turns on, showing “Open” as I have previously opened the lid. As GEME works by composting organic waste with microorganism, one bag containing that is already included. Opening up the bag that marks “Made in Korea”, I can smell the strong scent of wood chips, the same you find at pet shops. I poured the whole content into GEME and then added 800ml of water as instructed. I did not have to stir or mix it, for the machine will process it automatically. A 24 hours wait is required for the microorganism to “activate”. I just kept the cable plugged in and closed the lid.
Day 2, about 24 hours later. GEME can process up to 2kg of food waste a day. But for the first time, we just tossed whatever was left from today’s lunchtime – some rice, meat, veggie and banana peels into it, totaling around 300g. We will check again later.
We took a photo again around 5 hours after lunch. As you can see, the food residue has already disappeared from the surface though the full process should take 6-8 hours. There was no noticeable smell other than the scent of wood chips. We believe both the dehumidifier and UV sterilizer have been doing their job well to control the smell. The tiller and heater of the machine is extremely quiet – we barely noticed it working but it clearly has.
After trying out for 2 days, GEME has already become an important part of our pantry. Not only does it turn food waste into fertilizer in just hours, but it also does it without making any unpleasant odor or heat. It seems less than our office trash can, which is emptied every 2 days.
Although it is advised to use only under good ventilation, we have no problem using it inside an closed, air conditioned room. We do not quite have the time to test out the fertilizer on plants, but it looks promising so far. We would recommend GEME to anyone looking to reduce organic waste, reducing carbon footprint and other pollutants.
