Composting is easy enough but the revolutionary solar-powered Green Cone makes it even easier. From the dirt-averse to composting traditionalists, the Green Cone is fully self-sufficient and has something for everyone, returning all food waste - including dairy, meat, and even pet waste - back to the soil with hardly any effort at all. Just pop in your scraps, replace the lid, and walk away.

The Green Cone breaks down food waste into a compost tea that goes straight into the surrounding soil, flowers, and trees. Because it doesn’t produce harvestable compost it is a great solution for people who want to avoid food waste but don't need compost for their garden. Just bury it about 40cm deep in a sunny patch of soil (even in a large pot of soil in a driveway or balcony), put your waste in, and nature does the rest.

• Digests all food, cooked and uncooked, including fruit and veggies, meat & seafood scraps, dairy, oil & small bones
• Doesn’t need stirring, aeration, or frequent emptying
• Enclosed and secure: holds in smells
• Vermin-proof
• Delivers compost tea to surrounding soil, flowers, and trees
• Manufactured from very durable and mostly recycled plastic
• Minimal to no maintenance required once set up

How does it work?

The Green Cone creates the ideal microsystem for the natural processes of digestion, decomposition and dehydration. The dual-cone structure heats up in the sun, leveraging different temperatures between the inner/outer cones to circulate oxygen to food waste in the basket partially buried in the soil.

Many of the micro-organisms that naturally break down organic material live in the top 10cm of soil, so the in-ground digestion chamber simply makes it easier for them to work their magic, inviting them in to feed under the ideal conditions of temperature and oxygen.

What goes in it?

Unlike its compost cousins, this double-walled digester doesn’t follow a strict diet. The beauty of this baby is that it’s designed to aerobically (with oxygen) decompose ALL cooked and uncooked food waste. Not only does this combat any bad smells, it also means you can throw just about anything in, including meat, fish, bones, wheat-based foods, dairy products, vegetables and fruit, even pet poo (in moderation and depending on location), safe in the knowledge that it will return the nutrient-rich ingredients into the surrounding soil.

The Green Cone is designed to complement, rather than replace, your existing compost bin. Although it can digest just about anything, garden waste like grass clippings and leaves are the exception and best left out. These tend to clog up the unit and slow down the digestion process.

Depending on ambient temperature, the population of bacteria and the mix of food waste, when correctly installed the Green Cone digests 3.7 litres of food waste a day, or about 4kg a week. This is the typical amount produced by a family of 4.

Maintenance

Unlike regular compost, the Green Cone doesn’t need stirring, aeration, or emptying. If set up in a fertile, well-drained, sunny spot and fed a balanced diet then it shouldn’t fill up like a traditional composter. Ideally, it will only need to be cleaned out every 2-3 years if there is any residue.

Best spot to put it

As the Green Cone Composter uses solar heating in the double-walled chamber to speed up decomposition, it needs to be set up in a spot with maximum sunlight and away from the water table and flood-prone areas. Just make sure the top of the basket and the bottom lip of the outer cone are below ground level and always fully covered with soil.

Ideally this would be near a flowerbed or vegetable garden to take advantage of the nutrients produced but it can go anywhere in fertile, well-drained soil. Test out the drainage by digging the hole to install the cone and pouring in a bucket of water. If it doesn’t drain within 15 minutes then it’s likely to become anaerobic (without oxygen) and will slow down or stop digesting. You can improve drainage in clay soils with a mixture of gravel and compost around the digestion basket.

Relatively new to Australia, this fuss-free composter is the ultimate in self-sufficiency, making it a great all-rounder for both first-time or seasoned composters. And it's taking off fast.

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