In February of 2021 I came across a crowdfunding campaign for a product called “LOMI“.
I was immediately enthralled – I mean, who doesn’t want a counter-sized appliance that will completely compost all of your food waste into a usable – and earth-friendly – addition to your soil.
Unfortunately, the price was too high and the technology too new for me to get in on the action.
I’ve since gone back to the Pela website numerous times in the hopes that a sale would magically appear – and two weeks ago, one did!!
So I jumped on it, and let me tell you I am not at all sorry… I LOVE MY LOMI!!
Have you heard of LOMI?
Let me give you the broad strokes; LOMI is a small appliance – about the size of a toaster oven – that you can put all of your food waste into.
ALL OF YOUR FOOD WASTE – including meat, bones, processed foods, as well as the typical compostable peels, shells, cores and stems. In fact, you can reduce your organic waste by up to 80%! What does that mean? That means that I usually put 2 large garbage bags to the curb each week… this week, I put out half a bag (all of it being non-compostable packaging).
I sent ZERO compostable waste to landfill this week and that is a GREAT feeling!
So what happens to all of the plate scrapings, peels, uneaten food, etc? It all went into my LOMI.
Above you see burnt sweet potato fries, honeydew melon rinds, a mouldy ½ loaf of cheese bread, cucumber peels, tomato, and eggshells. There’s more in the pot, but I can’t remember right now.
All of these items would have gone to landfill because my garden composter is full. Pests would have been at my garbage bags and my garage would have smelled up a storm between garbage days.
With LOMI, you fill the appliance about 75% full – this can take days, so there are charcoal filters in the machine, as well as a lock-tight lid to keep smells and fruit flies away. Once you’ve reached the max fill line, which took me about 2 days, you run your LOMI by pressing a button.
That is it!
No maintenance, no fancy codes or additives etc. Just press the button.
This is what you will be left with:
It is ridiculously AMAZING!
Completely composted in a matter of hours and ready to spread in your plants or on your garden!
Mix it in and your plants will have a natural fertilizer with all of the nutrients and bacteria they need to thrive!
LOMI has three cycles you can run it on;
The compost above is from the Eco-Express mode which completes in 3-5 hours (there are sensors in LOMI that tell it when to stop)
I have tried the GROW mode, but it has a bit of a learning curve…
This cycle runs for about 20 hours at a much lower heat to preserve the bacteria and micro-organisms in your compost for the best results for your garden. Unfortunately, you need to balance the waste you put into this cycle as items with too much sugar or moisture (cucumber peels, melon rinds, tomato) without any dry waste to counter-balance it will leave your compost looking a little like puppy shit. Sorry, but it does.
I sent a photo of my Grow-mode results directly to LOMI customer support and asked “Why is my LOMI grow mode compost soggy”; this is what they came back with:
If your Grow Mode cycle has produced this type of end product, we recommend disposing of this end product, you can either put it in the green bin or compost pile. When you start a new cycle, please ensure that you are adding in food waste that won’t add to the amount of moisture already in Lomi. This can happen when too much moisture rich food, cooked food or high sugar content waste product has been added (eg: too many apple peels). Grow Mode runs on a lower heat setting and having too much of one type of food product in Lomi can result in wet/goopy end product! A great way to combat this, is to run an Eco Express mode first then add some chopped up fresh, raw food waste to that end product and run a Grow Mode cycle. This produces some great results for your garden. Don’t forget to add 50 mL of water and a Lomi Pod to your Grow Mode cycle for best results
(Customer support was great!)
I ran another batch of food waste through the LOMI; this time I included paper towels, banana peels, a hot dog (with a meat weiner), soggy dog food, and even a toilet paper roll. Yup, this little guy can compost just about anything!
Again, in less than 5 hours all of this crap – that would have gone to landfill – was composted down by 80% and ready to spread on my garden!
Did I tell you I only put out ½ a bag of garbage this week – and all of that was non-recyclable packaging
½ bag for a family of three!
Dog hair, paper products, spaghetti sauce, chicken bones (small bones only), bread products – there is even a cycle to run compostable packaging!
Having a LOMI really has made meal clean-up easier, composting fun, and gives me such a GREAT feeling by not contributing (as much) to landfill and global warming:
Compared to throwing your waste in the landfill, using Lomi reduces your carbon footprint by up to 127%. So how do we do this/How does this work?
Lomi dirt is rich in organic matter and organic carbon. Typically, food waste breaks down in landfills anaerobically and releases methane, a greenhouse gas with 80x the warming power of carbon dioxide. When Lomi dirt is used in combination with soil to grow plants, these nutrients are broken down by microorganisms to help feed plants. Nutrients like carbon get stored in plant matter instead of released as carbon dioxide.
I believe in this so much that I have been hyping the process over on Instagram with videos of what’s going in and what’s coming out.
I don’t work for LOMI. This is NOT a sponsored post. I paid for my LOMI composter – on sale, but without any other “influencer discounts”.
This is me sharing a brilliant product with all of my like-minded friends.
However, right now LOMI is on sale for $156 off! I haven’t seen this sale before, so I’m sure it’s a limited time opportunity. On top of that, if you use my referral link, you will get $25 off of your LOMI (and full-disclosure I will get $25 gift card to LOMI as well). Great for both of us – even greater for the planet!
For the record, I bought the LOMI machine ONLY. There are options to buy pods and filters etc – but the machine does come with your first round of charcoal that should last months, and the pods are a nice add-on – but not necessary.
Guys, I get excited about a lot of things, but rarely do they work out to be all that they promise (no my breast firming cream, menopausal pro-biotic, or even Il Makiage didn’t work for me one bit)
LOMI DOES.
Here’s to making the planet a teeny bit better for our kids – one compost cycle at a time.
Have a great one!