Gravenhurst Town council recently got the lowdown on a pilot project that turns compost into fertilizer within hours.
Jacob Hanlon of the Food Cycle Corporation made a presentation to council members regarding the Food Cycler Municipal Pilot Program.
The company’s FoodCyclers are countertop devices that repurpose food waste, turning it into an odourless powder that can be used in gardens.
Georgian Bay Township has already launched a pilot project, in which residents of the municipality track how often they use the Food Cycler.
According to information issued by the Township, residents can use scraps ranging from coffee grinds and tea leaves to eggshells, meat, poultry, fruit and veggie scraps. Once inserted into the Food Cycler, a typical cycle takes between 4 and 9 hours for the byproduct to become completely dehydrated and processed.
The byproduct can then be used as compost in gardens, added to composters, or thrown away in the regular green compost bin (the byproduct is exponentially reduced in volume and liquid mass from the original compost).
Mayor Heidi Lorenz thanked Hanlon for the presentation.
This could be useful in urban settings such as apartment buildings – but personally I see it as a last resort. Any houses that have grass or gardens can use any regular composter and put the results in the garden. Do we need to use electrical energy to compost what nature can do?