The Lomi countertop composter makes recycling food scraps as easy as loading the dishwasher

Downsize the amount of food waste you send to the landfill — and the amount of times you take out the trash.
By Leah Stodart  on 
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Lomi composter on kitchen counter with plant in the background
Not the trash, not the garbage disposal, but a secret third thing. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
4.6/5
Lomi countertop composter
Lomi blends seamlessly into the average kitchen routine by dealing with food scraps and packaging in a more convenient way than traditional composting and in a less smelly way than the trash. Its steep price point is a valid source of hesitation, but its ability to eat away at our food waste problem on a house-by-house level is priceless.
Mashable Score 4.6
Cool Factor 5
Learning Curve 4.5
Performance 4.8
Bang for the Buck 4
The Good
  • Takes hours to do what a traditional compost pile does in months
  • Can compost paper towels, napkins, and meat as well as the usual fruits and veggies
  • Looks like just another chic appliance
  • Uses less electricity than a dishwasher
  • Doesn't smell (while it's closed)
  • Decently quiet while running
  • All Lomi packaging is compostable
The Bad
  • Lid is tricky to click into place
  • Some annoying recurring maintenance issues
  • Dirt sometimes cements inside bucket
  • Still throwing dirt away if you don't have a garden or house plants

A Mashable Choice Award is a badge of honor, reserved for the absolute best stuff we’ve tested and loved.

Composting is one of the most impactful yet wildly inconvenient individual actions one can take against climate change on a day-to-day basis. The average person probably realizes, to a point, how much food waste their household is creating — the smell of the trash is a great indicator — but the environmental impacts of that food waste are pretty out of sight, out of mind.

Half of the problem is probably that many people don't even know what composting is. It's one of those words that might conjure up a vague mental image upon hearing — like a human-sized pile of dirt or a human-sized pile of worms — but doesn't force any real-life consideration afterward. The idea of composting specifically is often blown off with a simple, "Does anyone actually do that?"

Pela is one company looking to make composting a more accessible, less gross process. The Lomi, a chic indoor countertop composter, offers an alternative between throwing everything away and committing to the whole outdoor composting operation. I simply had to clear off a slab of counter space to try Lomi in my apartment.

Putting the food waste problem on the average person's radar

One needs to understand the food waste nightmare to understand the importance of composting.

While many of us probably twitch after watching someone toss a plastic bottle into the trash when there's literally a recycling bin right there, tossing old refrigerator food or banana peels in the trash isn't likely to generate the same visceral reaction. That's just where it goes, right? The landfill will take care of it or whatever.

But the carbon impact of food waste is just as dire as that of the plastic rotting in those same landfills. Food waste makes up more than 20 percent of landfill waste, beating out any other single trash material. When food rots, the anaerobic conditions created in the process become a breeding ground for bacteria that produce methane as a byproduct of breaking down the food.

Data estimates that the average household wastes almost a third of the food it acquires each year. That, combined with food wasted at businesses like restaurants (like the perfectly good bagels they're required to throw out at closing), translates to 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions. The World Wildlife Fund says that the food wasted by the U.S. alone generates emissions equivalent to what 37 million cars could pump out.

But, while the average person can't help that much of their recycled plastic doesn't actually get recycled — or that 20 big corporations create more than half of the world's total single-use plastic waste in the first place — decreasing your food waste is a less-daunting personal climate action.

Composting, along with following a list (rather than shopping when you're hungry) and remembering that expiration dates aren't gospel, can significantly reduce the food-related trash your household produces, subsequently decreasing the amount of trash bags you go through, the spats over whose turn it is to take that trash out, and the smell that comes with nasty tossed fridge leftovers.

But composting won't become the norm until it's accessible.

Lomi rules because traditional composting drags

It feels weird to say this considering the effects of climate change will bring a whole new meaning to inconvenience, but traditional composting is inconvenient as hell.

The concept is easy enough on its face: Composting is literally just recycling. It's the process of decomposing and converting organic matter (food scraps, leaves and yard clippings, brown paper products) into dirt-like, nutrient-rich fertilizer that can be put back into soil.

But up until a market for indoor electric composters emerged a few years ago, the "simple concept" of composting previously required serious outdoor space that could house a three-foot by three-foot-ish compost bin, manual churning over the course of a few months, at least a neutral stance on worms, and possibly the trickiest bullet point of them all: the motivation to do all that work in the first place. (Getting people to care about the environment past recycling a soda can is hard, OK.)

If you didn't personally have that big yard but were still dedicated to the cause, you could hoard your food scraps and find a local place with a community composting program. Before Lomi, I kept food scraps in your average stainless steel compost bin or in a bag in the freezer (the latter smelled far less rank, but still isn't an ideal storage situation). I'd eventually drop my collection off at places like BK ROT or Mom's Organic Market: a chain grocery store that offers community drop-off bins for hard-to-recycle items like shoes, wine corks, glasses, batteries, and home compost.

Unfortunately, the rules of what is and isn't accepted for traditional composting are pretty strict. Community drop-off places are typically using that aforementioned outdoor compost pile method, which is a dream for bugs and rodents. They particularly love the stench of decomposing meat and dairy products. So while it's understandable that most collection places disallow pest-attracting items to keep composting streamlined, some folks may not be willing to memorize the list or separate their scraps at home.

Lomi makes composting as easy as loading the dishwasher

An autonomous indoor composter with a sealed lid makes all of this a moot point.

Lomi is really quick and easy to set up. The hardest part about it might just be finding the counter space for another slow cooker-sized appliance. Lomi even has a series of super thorough, straightforward Youtube videos that can walk you through setup.

Open cardboard box with bags of charcoal and bag of Lomi Pods on countertop
Replace Lomi charocal every few months and use a Lomi pod in Grow and Lomi Approved modes. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Lomi composter and removed bucket sitting on countertop
Lomi's bucket has a handle that locks and unlocks for easy emptying. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

The unit itself arrives already assembled, so your only job is to dump the included charcoal pellets into the inner and back filters. Both the Lomi Basic and classic Lomi come with a round of charcoal and a bag of Lomi pods. The pods feature "a proprietary blend of probiotics that improves the speed of degradation, the reduction of smell, and most importantly help to create the most healthy output to add to your gardens/lawn/planters." The activated charcoal needs to be replaced every three months or so, and the machine will remind you when it's time to swap. The good news is that the old charcoal, as well as the rest of the packaging that any Lomi materials arrive in, can be thrown into Lomi after unboxing.

What kinds of things can Lomi compost?

Lomi can compost the fruit and veggie remnants you'd expect, plus so much more that you wouldn't expect. Your local compost drop-off spot could never.

Lomi's main draw is the variety of food and non-food items that it can take off of your hands — without leaving the house, at that. The best part of the "yes" list is that it's full of things that would typically stink up your trash can, like meat scraps or expired grub that someone forgot about. I got my roommates on board with using Lomi and it didn't take long for everyone to get the gist of what can and can't go into Lomi. The new addition to our routine quickly became second nature, especially with Lomi sitting on the counter right above the trash.

The only condition attached to Lomi's flexibility is that the mode you choose matters. Depending on contents, you'll choose from three modes by holding down the button on the front of Lomi until the corresponding picture lights up. Here's a quick breakdown:

  • Eco Express is the fastest of the options and is best for general raw or cooked food waste (leftover pasta, including lasagna, is a go). This mode takes three to five hours to complete.

  • Lomi Approved is the most flexible setting of the three as it's the only one that works with food scraps as well as Lomi-approved packaging like bioplastics (many clothing orders that come in the mail work here), paper products like brown CVS bags or paper towels, and other assorted compostable packaging that you never know what to do with. This mode takes five to eight hours to complete.

  • Grow Mode is how you'll get that nutrient-rich fertilizer that can be added back into a garden or houseplants, and it's only meant for fruit and vegetable scraps. This mode takes 16 to 20 hours to complete.

Each cycle uses less than 1kWh, which is less electricity than one dishwasher load requires.

Lomi composter bucket filled with fruit and edamame
Grow Mode was perfect for this batch of rogue grapes, peels, and edamame. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Lomi composter bucket filled with bread, egg shells, carrots, and cotton swab
Lomi Approved mode was my go to — here's a mix of bread, assorted vegetable scraps, and compostable cotton swabs. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Pela's "What can go into Lomi?" list was wickedly helpful when internalizing the items that get the green light. Whereas many composting do's and don'ts use vague umbrella terms like "organic," Pela names names. It notes that "paper products" includes things like paper towels and napkins, that "grains" includes bread, pizza crust, and even cereal (but without the milk!). Rinds can go in as long as they're cut up, but very hard peels like a pineapple head should only be added in small quantities. Large packaging should be cut or ripped into smaller pieces.

There's actually an entirely separate list for items that should go in sparsely, and a list of items that shouldn't see the inside of Lomi at all. Common sense tells you that chemical-y non-food items like soap, metal, plastic, or glass still need to be thrown in the regular trash or recycling bin. Though meat scraps can go into Lomi, their bones can't.

Lomi condenses a full bucket of trash to a handful of dirt

Note: The material that Lomi produces isn't like the dirt you'd find in the ground. It's dirt-adjacent organic output that can sometimes feel more like moist soil or dry, crumbly mulch with larger pieces in it. Lomi refers to it as "Lomi dirt," so for lack of a better term, I'll do the same.

I wish Lomi had a transparent window so I could witness what the hell goes on inside of this thing. Technically, "what goes on" is a mix of heat, aeration, abrasion, oxygen, and helpful bacteria from Lomi pods, with the smelly stuff neutralized as it's pushed through the charcoal filter. But knowing the terminology involved in the process never curbs my fascination when I take the lid off, especially when I remember that Lomi achieves in hours what an outdoor compost pile achieves in months.

Not only is the sheer transformation to dirt amazing, but the downsizing of that matter is also something. Despite each batch almost always reaching the three-liter fill line, Lomi condensed our varietal heap to a cup or two of dirt. Pela estimates that it's around an 80 percent reduction in food waste matter each time.

Plastic container filled with compost dirt on countertop with kitchen supplies in background
Lomi condenses a full bucket to a few handfuls. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

I didn't know whether to expect Lomi to be obnoxiously loud like a vacuum or rumble more discreetly like the dryer. Its noise level is kind of in between, though the hum is broken up by occasional startling creaks and squeaks that could definitely be believable additions to a Halloween sound effect playlist. It's giving Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

What do you do with Lomi dirt?

What went into the batch also determines whether or not the Lomi dirt can be used as actual compost. Dirt from both Eco-Express and Grow Mode can be added to plants — this can be a garden, your lawn, or indoor plants like I did.

Because of its bioplastic and paper content, Lomi Approved dirt is the only dirt that shouldn't be added to plants. Of course Lomi Approved is the mode that makes Lomi so unique from traditional composting methods and of course that's the mode used most frequently in my apartment.

Lomi composter filled with food scraps, egg shells, and packaging before composting
The full bucket of scraps and compostable packaging ahead of my first Lomi run. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Hand holding fertilizer over Lomi composter bucket
The results of my first Lomi run. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Instead, you can toss the compost in a green bin (curbside or community composting) or simply trash it. But the green bin solution kind of cancels out Lomi's draw in the first place. Anyone who has easy access to a green bin could just save $499 and put their scraps directly into the bin, and most people who are considering Lomi are probably doing so specifically because they don't have access to a green bin.

As antithetical as it feels, putting Lomi Approved dirt in the trash is still saving space and preventing odor in your garbage can, as well as in the landfill. Decomposing is the most harmful aspect of sending solid food waste to the landfill, anyway, so sending matter that's already decomposed at least skips that step.

Lomi's personal and potential global impacts on waste are apparent immediately

My apartment's management company can thank Pela for saving them from the extensive bitching I would have done over the nonexistent garbage disposal that we were promised. It's been game changing to have Lomi as a place to ditch old leftovers, cooking remnants, and general plate scum that isn't going to stink up the trash or gunk up the sink drain.

It didn't take long for me to notice how much less trash my roommates and I were producing. The difference was even more glaringly obvious when I was a guest in other people's homes and watching them trash every single crumb of food. Once you have the ability to compost at home, you can't go back.

The way that Lomi deals with packaging is my personal favorite flex. My household lives a pretty low-waste lifestyle anyway, but it's impossible to completely avoid the occasional paper towel or stack of brown napkins at the bottom of an Uber Eats delivery. Much of my low-waste swaps (like recycled cotton rounds) come in compostable packaging. I'm also currently using up some compostable cotton swabs since my cat knocked my reusable Last Swab off of the counter and into the fourth dimension. Now, there are no discrepancies between tossing and recycling. I just Lomi it.

I quickly saw how Lomi's eco-friendly effect on this one chore in my household alone could add up across the 140,000 households (hopefully more by the time you're reading this) that use Lomi. Pela's 2022 Impact Report estimates that a year with Lomi could divert up to 803 pounds — the CO2 equivalent of saving 10 trees — in a single household. My number is probably a little less because we run Lomi less often than once a day and are creating Lomi Approved dirt a majority of the time. But the difference I feel like I've made in the past 12 months is tangible just based on how much slower our trash fills up. At any rate, Pela's goal of eliminating 10 billion pounds of waste per year by 2028 doesn't seem like a stretch.

Downsides: Recurring maintenance and recurring trial and error

Sometimes, rather than the loose soil-like dirt that falls out of the bucket when you turn it upside down, I opened the lid to a rock-hard residue that cemented to the inside of the bucket. It stuck in crevices that were nearly impossible to reach with any type of cleaning utensil and was so stiff that it prevented the arms at the bottom from spinning, rendering Lomi unusable. Only after days of poking and soaking (the second of which I don't think is really advised) was I able to push the remnants out. Wrestling with brown Lomi mush is just about as appetizing as touching the wet food that collects in the sink catcher.

According to Pela's community support page, I wasn't the only one who experienced this problem, or the only one who had to order a new bucket because of the havoc the stubborn residue wreaked on the original. Community moderators noted that foods high in sugar content (fruit) or in starch content (bread) naturally congeal and harden during a heated breakdown process. I don't remember the exact mashup my roommates and I had added to Lomi before experiencing the weirdly-solid consistency, but I do know the dirt has been pretty normal since keeping a stricter eye on the greens-to-browns balance of each batch.

Other issues had a more involved fix. In addition to the inner bucket, I had to replace the fan after Lomi stopped mid-cycle multiple times and hit me with an ominous beep and blinking light. I do like that Pela doesn't make you guess what the problem is — the Youtube channel covers most ailments Lomi might display and what to do about them. Customer service was incredibly responsive and quickly filled an order for replacement parts get me back on track.

Those parts were free because my Lomi was still under warranty, but I can foresee it being annoying to couch up more money if maintenance issues occur past the one-year mark. Charcoal filters and Lomi pods will also be recurring costs, but those shouldn't be more than $40 or $50 per 90 cycles.

But honestly, I swear the hardest part of using Lomi is getting the damn lid on correctly. It twists on and off in a similar manner to an Instant Pot, but requires a few attempts with a certain flick of the wrist.

Is Lomi worth it?

If Lomi ever becomes slightly cheaper, its status as the new kitchen staple isn't far off. And millions of households adopting such a sustainable personal practice could be a turning point for emissions generated by food waste. Considering that more than 40 percent of food waste happens at the household level, electric countertop composters like Lomi could completely revolutionize one of the grossest household chores — diverting the carbon footprint of multiple pounds of food at the push of a button.

Lomi makes composting more accessible effort-wise, but misses the financial aspect of accessibility. As is the case with most novel tech products chilling in a market with few competitors, Lomi's steep price isn't necessarily unfair or unexpected. Unfortunately, in-home composting needs to not only be easy, but affordable to have a shot on most people's countertops, and 500 bucks isn't exactly that. Lomi is available at Amazon, which is nice — and it sometimes goes on sale.

But Lomi has so much going for it that makes the cost justifiable, even when accounting for a few maintenance quirks. It's a seamless transition into anyone's daily kitchen routine that makes composting approachable for the average person who wouldn't bat an eye at food waste otherwise. Plus, the prospect of less trash and catching a whiff of old fridge food less often might be enough to pique your interest.

How we tested

Lomi was used on a weekly basis in a three-person apartment for about a year. One vegan, one vegetarian, and one person who's really trying to be better but loves a good chicken taco posed a true test of Lomi's flexibility when it came to handling various food scraps, both the expected fruits and veggies and the grains and meat scraps that can't be added to a traditional compost pile.

Other factors taken into account during testing were:

  • Ease of adding Lomi to your routine: Like, is it going to be a whole thing to remember to use this? I was the only person in my household who read the official rules of Lomi — the general gist is so straightforward and sensical that it shouldn't take anyone more than a few days to learn the ropes, including kids. Keeping Lomi near the trash can ensures that it'll require next-to-no effort for someone to split up scraps and packaging accordingly.

  • Counter space: Lomi does take up a bit more room than other appliances that may be in your counter space competition, like a blender or toaster. While it's compact enough to stow away if you have a large, empty cabinet, you'll likely want to leave it out for quick access to the bucket while cooking. Our apartment had enough counter space to dedicate some to Lomi, but there may be less real estate in some smaller kitchens.

  • Trash downsizing potential: If you're going to give up a slab of precious counter space to an appliance, it better have true daily use. Because it takes a long list of both raw and cooked food scraps as well as paper products, packaging, and even some assorted compostable bathroom products, Lomi has the ability to slow the filling (and stench) of your trash and recycling bins.

  • Frequency of opportunities to actually re-use Lomi compost: Most of Pela's statistics about the food waste emissions Lomi can divert are based on the dirt from that cycle being returned back into the earth (plants, the lawn, etc.) and do not apply to Lomi Approved mode, which is the only mode that creates unusable dirt. The ability to break down bioplastic and paper packaging so quickly is one of Lomi's biggest flexes, but could have you tossing your "compost" more often than re-using it.

  • Maintenance and recurring costs: Some aspects of Lomi's usage are inherently recurring for Lomi to function properly, like the routine replacement of the charcoal filter. Other potential replacement parts that may be necessary past the one-year warranty could add extra costs to the already-steep original price point of Lomi.

  • Price point: $499 is a costly point of entry that may not work with all budgets, especially if a household is also considering another large purchase. But Lomi's price isn't an outlier compared to competitors like the Vitamix FoodCycler and Reencle Home Composter. Outside of occasional sales, the $400 to $500-ish realm seems to be the current comfortable spot for in-home composters.

Leah Stodart
Leah Stodart
Senior Shopping Reporter

Leah Stodart is a Philadelphia-based Senior Shopping Reporter at Mashable where she covers essential home tech like vacuums and TVs as well as sustainable swaps and travel. Her ever-growing experience in these categories comes in clutch when making recommendations on how to spend your money during shopping holidays like Black Friday, which Leah has been covering for Mashable since 2017.

Leah graduated from Penn State University in 2016 with dual degrees in Sociology and Media Studies. When she's not writing about shopping (or shopping online for herself), she's almost definitely watching a horror movie, "RuPaul's Drag Race," or "The Office." You can follow her on X at @notleah or email her at [email protected].


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