Does a Subpod smell? Doesn't all compost stink? How does the Subpod manage to avoid rotting smells since it is a composter?
If you’ve been unlucky enough to be around poorly maintained composting systems then you may have noticed a bad smell.
Bad smells indicate that the composting process is out of balance in some way. To make composting appealing for people, we designed the Subpod with this in mind to avoid this problem.
Compost that is rich in oxygen does not smell. This is because the organisms that thrive in an oxygen-rich environment don’t produce smelly by-products. Oxygen-loving microbes will break down the food into non-smelling smaller components. This type of composting is called aerobic composting.
One of the key design principles of the Subpod was to allow a large airflow into the composting system to encourage aerobic composting.
Another magic component of the Subpod is its use of worms! Worms break down the food scraps into smaller particles quickly, and the worm's intestines also have good bacteria inside them as well.
As the worms break down the scraps they excrete the smaller particles into the soil around them with
the good bacteria/beneficial organisms. These are the non-smelly organisms we want in our compost breaking down the scraps. The microorganisms then get into breaking down the particles to even smaller components (which don’t smell).
The Subpod comes with some specific instructions to make sure you get the right ratio of wet, high nitrogen food to dry, carbon-containing waste. This will keep the system balanced and not smelly.
To achieve this in a Subpod, merely ensure that you add some dry carbon material when you put your
wet food waste into a Subpod. Dry carbon waste is things like newspaper and cardboard. Wet, high nutrient foods are things like lettuce and apples. Our detailed instruction manual will come with every Subpod and will also be available online.
Using the worm aerator or mixing by hand every time food is added to the Subpod ensures that the food is mixed through the Subpod and broken down faster as well as oxygenating the system so it does not become smelly.
Another factor to keep away smells is to make sure you don’t overfeed your worms. At the start when your worm population is building up, you will add your kitchen scraps at a smaller rate. When your Subpod is up and running you will be able to add 30 liters/15 kilograms of waste per week into your Subpod.
We will give you full guidance and instructions through our detailed instruction manual and our online community portal, Subpod Grow Hub: https://growhub.subpod.com/