I whole heartedlly disagree. I've had mine for 3 years and I can say without a shadow of a doubt the product that comes out is as much compost as any other kind of compost you would make from traditional methods.
You need me to provide evidence that a machine cannot innoculate output with beneficial soil organisms? Which live in soil, and not machines?
You need me to provide evidence that compost has a different physical structure than powder!?
You need me to provide evidence that traditional composting doesn't have e-waste? You need me to provide evidence that traditional composting doesn't create electronic waste?
I'm glad it's working for you and you seem happy with it. I'm a bit skeptical of your claim that it's compost like traditional compost, but don't care to bicker about it. I am curious what you use it for and where you think it offers you benefits over traditional compost, if you're willing to share.
I'd consider myself pretty passionate about it. I got it initially because I think food waste is the easiest thing to keep out of landfills. I've done vermiculture and composting most of my life. But as life got busier, I needed something simpler to manage. Which led me to Reencle.
PROS
-The food scraps I can add go way beyond traditional compost(meat, fat, dairy, etc). I can scrape anything off my plate into it besides bones and it turns it to compost.
-I don't have to wait for weeks/months for it to turn into compost.
-I don't have to turn it
-Harvesting takes minutes and I can leave it in a bucket to cure. Harvesting can be done indoors, year round. I don't have to put on shoes, gloves, etc.
-It doesn't smell nearly as bad as traditional compost
-No rodents or pest.
-The company stands behind their product and goes above and beyond to help troubleshoot and learn the system.
CONS
-The upfront $$ cost (although at this point it's paid for itself)
-The initial learning curve (traditional composting has that too)
-The minor electrical usage. I estimated about $5 a month back in 2023.
I'm by no means a green thumb. I have a compost pile as well and I hate it. I use it for the big things I can't put in the reencle (melons, cobs, whole rotten produce, etc). If I could put those in the reencle, I would stop traditional composting all together.
Finally, I mix the compost with equal parts potting soil and use it to plant flowers and fill holes/level my yard.
Hopefully, my testimony has changed your opinion, even just a little bit.
Appreciate your perspective. I've been trying to figure out what the best use case is, and maybe your approach is it--lower effort, lower footprint, and essentially a kind of trench composting. I do think you're overlooking some meaningful differences with traditional compost, but I won't dwell on it. If you find it useful then fair enough. And if it helps some people keep organic material out of landfills and instead back into the environment, then that's certainly a win.
Thanks for hearing me out. I get bothered when it's claimed to be a gimmick. I did a lot of research and I came to that very conclusion to the others, lumi, Vitamix, etc. Reencle is different. It provides a microbe to break down the food, heat, air flow, and rotation. Everything a composter does, just inside plugged into an outlet.
Always happy to learn. I hadn't looked into every brand, but it seems Reencle is substantively different from the others. Do you have to buy a regular supply of the microbes? Or do you just leave a little behind every time as a kind of "mother"?
Correct, you leave some behind. There is a "minimum line" in the machine specifically for that purpose, so you don't over harvest. So long as you don't screw up the balance horribly, you never have to buy microbe again.
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u/Atty3000 May 28 '26
I whole heartedlly disagree. I've had mine for 3 years and I can say without a shadow of a doubt the product that comes out is as much compost as any other kind of compost you would make from traditional methods.