Environment

Portable pulverizer gives food waste the thrashing of a lifetime

Portable pulverizer gives food waste the thrashing of a lifetime
The Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer is designed to consolidate commercial food waste, and make it easier to compost
The Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer is designed to consolidate commercial food waste, and make it easier to compost
View 3 Images
The Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer is designed to consolidate commercial food waste, and make it easier to compost
1/3
The Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer is designed to consolidate commercial food waste, and make it easier to compost
The Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer can be wheeled into place, and plugged into a standard 220-volt outlet
2/3
The Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer can be wheeled into place, and plugged into a standard 220-volt outlet
The Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer uses thrashing chains to break down food waste
3/3
The Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer uses thrashing chains to break down food waste
View gallery - 3 images

Businesses such as restaurants, grocery stores and farms are known for generating a lot of food waste. Not only can that waste take up space and attract vermin in landfills, but it can also be costly for those businesses to dispose of. That’s why Nevada-based Bokashicycle introduced a new product this week, the Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer. The machine “shreds, rips, bruises and pulverizes” food waste, allowing more of it to fit within a receptacle, and preparing it for easy composting.

Users start by stepping up onto its loading platform, then dropping bucket-loads of food waste into its hopper. The waste proceeds to be fed from that hopper into the machine’s wonderfully-named “thrashing chamber,” the walls of which are lined with flailing chains that smash, trash and otherwise abuse the unwanted food.

From there, the pulverized garbage drops into a waiting 55-gallon (208-liter) barrel, which can hold approximately 500 pounds (227 kg) of waste. After that, it can simply be disposed of as usual, or – preferably – used to produce compost. The pulverizing of the waste increases its surface area and (in the case of things like fruit) exposes its insides, allowing the bacteria in compost heaps or municipal facilities to process it more quickly and thoroughly.

The Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer uses thrashing chains to break down food waste
The Bokashicycle Food Waste Pulverizer uses thrashing chains to break down food waste

Should users wish to help boost the process, they can add some Bokashicycle culture mix to each load of waste before dumping it into the machine. This aids in the fermentation of the waste.

The Pulverizer is mounted on wheels and plugs into a standard 220-volt outlet, so it can be rolled into place where needed. It doesn’t contain any hazardous blades, the thrashing chamber is automatically disabled whenever the hopper is removed for maintenance, and the chains are reportedly easy and inexpensive to replace.

It’s available now for US$4,495, plus shipping. If that’s a little too much for your pocketbook, but you still like the idea of minimizing your impact on the environment, Bokashicycle also sells a kit for converting your pet’s poop into plant fertilizer.

The video below shows the Food Waste Pulverizer in action.

Source: Bokashicycle

Bokashicycle FW Pulverizer Machine - Part 2 Recycle Food Waste

View gallery - 3 images
7 comments
7 comments
MQ
Isn't this kind of the same as a garden mulcher? Which in turn is a modified chaff cutter. I'm sure one can be had for a little less than $4.5k. However,getting mode in the bin is a good thing.
Jim Friedl
I wonder how loud this thing is. In urban areas, most supermarkets are on the first floor of a residential building. On-site processing may still be a problem and excess material may need to be carted off to a processing center. Still a good solution and better than sending food items to a landfill.
cwolf88
I worked in a rural hospital that had a farm for the patients to work on. All kitchen waste went to the pigs who went to the table.
Why not sell or give edible waste to farms rather ghan landfill?
COCO LOCO
@ cwolf88
I have heard that people can transfer diseases to swine by feeding said swine human-munched-on food. This doesn't mean that food scraps created *before* a meal shouldn't go to the pig.
BTW, Bokashi is hardly mentioned in the article. It's not quite the same as traditional composting, which is an aerobic process (contains air). Fermenting food scraps in an anaerobic (doesn't contain air) system is what makes it bokashi. And the fermented scraps can then be put into the ground where one would plant. There is a lot of information on this. Snoop around.
mgb
cwolf88
Because this mass consumption/production-centered society and economy we have constructed puts cost before anything else: how to get the waste to the pigs who invariably live way out there. The days when people and their pigs lived close to each other and when each family kept only enough pigs for its needs plus one or two for special occasions/hard times...these days are basically history. No thought is given to a complete cycle of production/consumption/waste. $$$ and convenience rule the day.
When I suggested to the small semi-rural community where I live (near Osaka, Japan) that we should keep a few goats to keep the huge weed growth under control instead of buying , maintaining and running gas consuming whipper-snippers and paying someone to do the work...everyone reacted with horror and negativity: all they could do was to try to find excuses as to why it was absolutely impossible for such an idea to work. And this is where just about every household had pets (dogs/cats)!
Ben O'Brien
These are all nice ideas but my idea is to sell that waste to a local bio diesel maker especially with all those developments into making bio diesel from stuff like this.
Maybe by the time they set that up somebody will invent a way to improve the quality of it relatively easily.
Jaffa Wify
Most people eat out several times a week, so the notion of stockpiling food is a foreign concept. Grocery stores operate on the premise that most households only maintain a three-day supply of food, relying on the just in time delivery system to resupply only when the last of an item is purchased. Thanks. Regards, hcg 1234