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4 of the Best Electric Compost Bins—Including Our Personal Favorite

Streamline your waste reduction efforts.

The Mill Electric Composter Food Recycler
Credit:

Courtesy of The Mill

For reducing both waste and your footprint (and not to mention, giving your garden a boost), composting is worth the effort. However, it's only natural to want to reduce waste with minimal fuss. Enter electric countertop and kitchen compost bins. These innovative devices aim to make composting fast, simple, and incredibly efficient, transforming your food scraps into nutrient-rich compost in just a matter of hours.

Through a combination of mechanical and thermal processes, these compact composters and food waste recyclers transfer leftovers, vegetable peels, and more into compost and dehydrated grounds for soil—often with just the press of a button, no less, and aesthetically pleasing to boot. This predictably makes composting a cleaner, more convenient task when compared to traditional compost bins. But which to choose?

The Best Electric Compost Bins

To narrow down your options, we curated a selection of the best compost bins on the market today. With their stats, reviews, and our own experience testing, you'll be able to choose a top-rated machine that will streamline your waste reduction efforts. (You've officially run out of excuses.) Here are the top four you should consider to simplify a more sustainable lifestyle.

Electric Composters vs Traditional Compost Bins: Unlike traditional composting—which requires you to monitor temperatures and moisture levels actively—electric composters use automatic heat, grinding, and aeration functions to break down food waste and compostable materials. Depending on the model, the machines' interiors are designed to speed up decomposition, creating compost ready to use in just a few hours or days. Non-electric bins can take weeks to months to produce compost.

Best Overall: Lomi

Lomi Electric Composter
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Courtesy of Lomi

If you're anything like me, the desire to live more sustainably often collides with the reality of limited space and time. Backyard compost pile à la Martha herself? Can’t relate; I live in an apartment. Composting was seemingly out of the question for me, or at least not without some inconveniences (transporting waste to a composting center, stinky bins, etc.). All that to say, I’m sorry it took so long for the Lomi electric composter to enter my life and one-bedroom. 

Ideal for beginners (i.e. moi), Lomi makes composting nearly effortless with a countertop-friendly design that operates via three modes: an express mode (which quickly reduces volume), a mode for a selection of non-food compostables, and a standard, longer composting cycle.

Add your waste, select your cycle, and Lomi will heat and grind the scarps, all while monitoring moisture and temperature levels. Refillable carbon filters and self-cleaning features keep odors and mess at a minimum, and the addition of the brand’s LomiPods help boost the organic matter and healthy microbes in the resulting grounds.

As for its downsides, its runtime can take up to 20 hours and the Lomi is on the noisier side (larger food waste particles result in a higher level of noise)—so you’ll want to take care when you choose to run it. But, along with its ease of use, its relatively small size (standing at a foot tall) and generous 3 liter capacity helps the Lomi hit the ultimate sweet spot amongst electric composters and food recyclers.

Best for Small Spaces: FoodCycler FC-30

FoodCycler FC-30 Electric Composter
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Courtesy of FoodCycler FC-30

Meet the FoodCycler FC-30. This petite food recycler will take up only slivers of counter space and your budget, clocking in at less than a foot wide and under $300. Specifically designed for smaller homes and families in mind, the FoodCycler FC-30's bucket can hold 2.5 liters of waste.

Of course, though it can fit snuggly in corners, its lower capacity means that it will need to be run more frequently than larger models (typically at least twice per week), and food and debris should be cut or torn into smaller pieces to ensure the machine's grinding mechanisms don't become clogged.

Additionally, users frequently report that the included carbon filter (which helps eliminate odor) needs frequent refilling and replacing. Still, its compact size doesn’t sacrifice efficiency, grinding and dehydrating food scraps into a mulch-like dirt in a matter of hours. Overall, it's an ideal option for city dwellers or anyone who wants to reduce food waste without a yard.

Best Splurge: The Mill

The Mill Food Recycler Composter
Credit:

Courtesy of The Mill

Sleek, smart, and ultra-stylish, The Mill is like the crème de la crème of electric food recyclers—a categorization that the company is sure to highlight. Quoting the U.S. Composting Council, "True compost requires a period of stabilization that generally takes weeks to months, depending on the method used," reports The Mill. However, the nutrient-rich food grounds produced by The Mill and similar devices can be used in the composting process, offering soil similar benefits to traditional compost.

The Mill can be set up in the kitchen (its maple-wood-inspired veneer will fit in seamlessly), taking up no more space than a small garbage can and sealing in odors with a charcoal filtration system that can go for a full year without replacing. It can also handle waste from larger households, thanks to a 6.5 liter capacity that can process 1.4 pounds of food waste in about 2.5 hours. As a bonus, it's also whisper-quiet, operating at just 41 decibels.

Worth the splurge? Absolutely.

Most Stylish: Reencle

Reencle Electric Composter
Credit:

Courtesy of Reencle

The clean lines, minimalist design, and compact size of the Reencle makes it the most aesthetically enviable on our list—but looks aren't the only thing that this electric composter has going for it. It's also one of the quietest on the market, operating at 28 decibels. (For the record, rustling leaves clock in between 20 and 30 on the scale.)

Available in both a sleek grey and bright white, the device itself measures just over 22 inches high and can handle about 2.2 pounds of waste per day. Its processing time can take anywhere between two and 24 hours, depending on the load, and results in true compost thanks Reencle's advanced microbe technology.

A three-layer filter system also locks in odors—because who needs the smell of garbage (or eyesore compost bins) overtaking their stylish living space?

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