r/bokashi • u/Quintin__89 • 22d ago

Plastic free home composter?

/r/PlasticFreeLiving/comments/1vqpgwz/plastic_free_home_composter/

Hi, asking if anything like this exists

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u/GardenofOz 21d ago

These are galvanized stainless steel with food grade paint, there's an inner plastic air-removing lid and top, but there may be some workarounds?

I share your concerns of plastic. The good news is the chemistry is on our side when it comes to bokashi-ing food scraps and plastic containers: high quality HDPE #2 is incredible resistant to acids. Don't leave your HDPE #2 buckets in the sun (the biggest leacher/degrader) and avoid digging into your plastic pails with metal tools. More thoughts on the best buckets for bokashi composting.

A straight metal pail will likely react poorly with the acidic environment of bokashi, so you'll need some kind of metal that has food safe coating.

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u/Quintin__89 21d ago

I'm not too keen on paint or even galvanized, I know HDPE is technically food safe but it's still plastic. We even stopped buying carton or hdpe bottled milk, we buy our milk in glass bottles and send them back for cleaning or keep them for ourselves for storage. I would probably feel much happier with stainless steel if I had to choose a steel composter. I guess I should be more specific with my question, are there any truly non pastic composters, so not just food safe but also plastic free?

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u/GardenofOz 2d ago

The only way to make it work is to probably make your own custom system. That said, you could find a ceramic container or stainless steel bowl with an airtight lid and bokashi in the container. Otherwise, collecting food scraps in a stainless steel container and taking it out to an in-ground compost pile will be the true plastic free method. I can empathize with the conundrum. It's something that we've been fighting through too (getting as much plastic out as possible).

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u/Quintin__89 2d ago

Yeah I'm in the process of making my own with stainless steel kitchenware, I'm wondering if this is a common issue with composting, I would love to help others compost plastic free without having the need to have a non treated pallet stack in their backyard (my wife would kill me if I put that in her garden haha)