I was introduced to the concept of composting only very recently, when a friend, determined to get high school students interested in the environment, set up a composting bin in her classroom. Armed with a 10-gallon bucket of dirt, a handful of earthworms, and an array of fruit and vegetables, she set out to educate youngsters about the benefits of using natural processes to grow plants.
After being inspired by the fertile soil her earthworms created and the resulting herb plants, I began to look into composting systems for my apartment. The problem was that all of them, functional as they may be, have about as much aesthetic appeal as those girls who wear spandex leggings without anything over them. They also usually require daily emptying, for sanitation's sake, and to prevent the smell of rotting food from taking over your kitchen. In a sea of stinky forest green molded plastic barrels, what is a design-conscious-turned-environmentally-conscious girl to do?
Keep composting, says Jonathan Fenton, creator of the Biopod, a design-forward solution to recycling organic waste. Although it looks like something straight out of WALL-E, it has a more practical function: To slow down decomposition of organic waste, so that you can accumulate more before having to empty the bin for composting. It accomplishes this using something called "vacuum ionization," Fenton said. In vacuum ionization, ionized air that is activated upon closing the pod circulates around the waste, killing bacteria and slowing down the decomposition of the waste before it is composted. This means that you can keep waste in the pod without needing to worry about bacteria, nasty smells, or daily emptying.
The pod has an LED indicator that detects methane levels and changes colors to indicate the decomposition progress, which, Fenton said, "also acts as a reminder to the user as to when they should empty the pod." And a tidbit via Fenton for those interested in materials: "The Pod has a dishwasher safe HDPE (High-density Polyethylene) removable liner and thermal insulated body made from PC-ABS (Polycarbonate-ABS Blend)."
If you want to read about the Biopod and see some pictures, you can do so here.