Hot Composter Spotlight
Meet Vincent - Chief Operating Officer @ Aerobin
I recently caught up with Vincent from Aerobin.
How did you arrive at your role at Aerobin?
“I have been passionate about environmental protection since my teenage years. I studied for an Accounting degree at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and I am committed to working in a company that can positively contribute to the environment with my skill sets. Before COVID, I accepted this dream job after years of working within our company’s accounting and finance department.”
Can you share with us about your composting experience?
“I have been composting for 13 years. I started with limited composting knowledge but was enthusiastic because I deeply believe home composting is the easiest and most relevant way to deal with 80% of my household waste instead of waiting for the council’s diesel trucks to pick it up. Most of the time, such valuable organic wastes end up in landfills here in Australia.
In short, composting is a beautiful thing to do! Over the years, composting cultivated my household to appreciate mother nature and taught me to be more resourceful about nature’s offering towards my composting effort. I also collect four neighbours' kitchen wastes weekly and compost them at our office. This means composting is good for the environment and building a strong and connected local community. Promoting Aerobin on social media platforms helps me connect with more like-minded individuals and organisations that believe home and community composting is an empowering act to counter climate change on a daily basis. Don’t throw your organic waste in the bin. Throw it in the compost!”
Why do you think Aerobin is a great solution for home composters in the UK?
“Aerobin is one of the most advanced composting tools in the market, and the level of ongoing composting management is relatively low due to its overall clever design in Melbourne, Australia. Like any other tools people buy from hardware stores, Aerobin also needs its users to operate with basic composting knowledge, such as having balanced nitrogen, carbon, moisture and air inside. It is primarily designed to compost balanced home organic kitchen wastes and small pieces of garden/yard waste to achieve a natural aerobic and rapid hot composting process.
Aerobin composter’s design is intrinsically more rodent resistant and can also achieve a hot and rapid composting process.
29 countries have bought Aerobin before, and it has been sold to Finland, the USA, Canada and Australia for over a decade. It is proven that Aerobin is well accepted in much colder climates than just Australia.
Based on our research, experience and feedback from global Aerobin users. There are three manageable criteria in common to achieving hot composting.
- A diverse and balanced mix of organic waste
- Critical mass – sufficient amount of waste each time when loading into Aerobin
- Free Catalyst – Fresh coffee grounds (free from your local café), chicken manure (free if you have chickens), or a reasonable amount of fresh grass cuttings (free if you have a lawn)
The unique features of Aerobin.
- If the users can consistently add sufficient organic waste into Aerobin, the double insulated wall panels and lid can retain the composting heat much longer to keep the hot composting microbe happier and alive longer to compost the waste, especially during winter.
- With its centre lung design and ventilated base, there is no ongoing aeration or mixing/turning of the biomass required once the balanced materials are loaded into Aerobin.
- The hot composting process leads to condensation activities, resulting in leachate collection at Aerobin’s base, so users can also harvest natural fertiliser as a by-product from their composting process to nourish their garden and plants.”
Do you have some real-world examples of the Aerobin in action?
“Yes! It is better to see some real hot composting cases than words.”
Melbourne, Winter - With Fresh coffee grounds and some fresh grass cuttings - This video shows we reached just below 60 Celsius or 140 Fahrenheit (with an ambient temperature of 10 Celsius or 50 Fahrenheit) Visit Link
Utah, USA Winter - Here is a video shared by a USA consumer based in Utah. The ambient temperature was subzero, and inside of his 400Litre Aerobin was above Celsius 30 degrees or 86 Fahrenheit. Facebook Link or Flickr Link.
Colorado, USA Winter - The ambient temperature was subzero, and inside this 400-litre Aerobin was above Celsius, 48 degrees or 120 Fahrenheit. Instagram Link, or Flickr Link.
Wisconsin, USA Winter - YouTube Video posted by a Wisconsin-based consumer, but the audio is in Chinese. We managed to translate the audio into English below. The consumer recorded that the outside ambient temperature was -26 degrees Celsius or -15 F (despite the video title saying -20C). She tried to use a little baking thermometer to measure the biomass temperature in her 400-litre Aerobin because, over time, the biomass can sink. The thermometer was very short, so she could not insert it into the biomass. Still, she said she felt lots of heat comes up while the lid was open, which increased the thermometer reading to about -12 degree Celsius or 10 F. If the steam was inside her Aerobin, this indicates the biomass was certainly active and well above 0 degrees. YouTube Video.
Singapore - With Chicken manure – This one reached 75 Celsius or 165 Fahrenheit by our Singaporean Aerobin user (with an ambient temperature of 25-30 Celsius or 77-86 Fahrenheit) Flickr Link.
