Zera Food Recycler turns food scraps into organic fertilizer

Zera Food Recycler turns today’s food scraps into tomorrow’s homemade organic fertilizer

By Daniel Tej

November 18, 2016

3 min read

If you’re deeply concerned about your leftover food ending up in a garbage bag bound for a landfill or re-purpose it into fertilizer for your garden, then you should consider this cool idea. WLabs, the arm of Whirlpool Corporation has found Zera – a clever (albeit pricey) alternative to the traditional composting methods, which are smelly and take a long time to produce manure from your garbage. Zera food recycler aims to be a boon for reducing food waste, and its sleek and compact design is a perfect addition to any kitchen.

This $1,199 in-kitchen composter claims to turn your food scraps into ready-to-use homemade fertilizer, by reducing a week-long process to anywhere from 16 to 24 hours. Designed to hold up to eight pounds of food, you can toss in a variety of different types of wastes like – apple cores, onion skins, moldy bread and whatever is left on your plate after a meal. This system utilizes oxygen, moisture, heat and a plant-based additive and an agitator to expedite decomposition process, to produce homemade organic manure that can be used in lawns, garden or in potted plants.

Once completely full, all you have to do is to turn Zera on. This will start a set of interior mixing blades to chop scrap food, while heating it will allow the plant-based additive to break down the waste contents. Finally, usable fertilizer will be collected in its bottom tray after 24 hours. The fast process is partly due to coconut husk and baking soda which speeds-up the decomposition.

A user can also remotely operate this purposeful innovation with Zera’s dedicated mobile app. For now, Zera is just a prototype, but Whirlpool Corporation is planning to launch an Indiegogo campaign in early January 2017. WLabs has set significant discount on its earliest Early Bird pricing for Indiegogo backers at $699.