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Before I get too far ahead of myself, the Nature Mill composter is self contained, heating and turning compost material in the upper chamber. Then you transfer the compost to a lower chamber and add more items to the top. A red light comes on about every two weeks, telling you to empty the lower tray. You can compost even dairy, meat and fish (which you wouldn’t put in a normal compost pile.)
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| Lower Tray |
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| Upper Chamber |
Initially, I had hoped to keep this in my kitchen, beside my trash and recycling bins. They actually make cabinet kits for the composter, but I don’t have an outlet I could plug it into. Also, there is nothing latching the top closed (from curious fingers) and they warn that the inside can get quite hot.
So, I’ve been using my composter now for about 3 1/2 weeks. It can handle up to 120 lbs of food waste per month, and produces a batch of compost about every two weeks. I haven’t gotten to use any yet, because after you transfer the compost the first time, you let it continue to compost in the lower tray. Next time I’m ready to transfer, I’ll be ready to use some as well!
That starts the process of the composter turning the compost, and dropping it through the trap door, to the tray below.
Here is another clip toward the end of the transfer cycle.
and a shot of the trap door opening (and the noise it makes)
There will be a small bit of compost remaining in the upper chamber after transfer, that’s not a problem, it helps the next batch!
You’re left with lovely compost that will continue to break down and compact until your red light comes on!
You can see I may have rushed it a little bit since there are still bits of banana peel visible. I was anxious, what can I say!
Nature mill also has pricier models with colored accents, foot pedals and lifetime filters.
So, why I love the Nature Mill Automatic Compost bin:
- I love a gadget. I do, I can’t help it.
- It’s all self contained. No piles of food waste on my counter and trekking to the backyard to add it to the pile.
- No worries about our skunks, raccoons, wild turkeys, deer, cows, groundhogs or bats getting into it. We’ve had animals get a bag from the bottom of our garbage can and spread it all over the yard.
- No trash smell! My kitchen smells better having all the food waste out of it!
- We’re only producing 1/2-1/4 bag of trash per week (we’re fortunate enough to have a county-wide recycling program as well!)
- Nitrogen rich compost!
- It’s fast! No turning by hand and compost is ready in 2 weeks.
- It’s attractive. It’s about the size of an old school CPU case and is much better looking than a pile of waste outside.
- It’s so easy.
- You can even put dairy, meat and fish in it!
- Other things I am probably forgetting right now.
We have so much food waste around here between banana peels, other fruit skins, sandwich crusts and all the confetti that signals a toddler is finished with his meal, hee hee. It’s fantastic to not be putting that in the trash!
The composter uses about 5 kWh of power per month (about the same as a night light.)
Who knew trash could be “fun?!” There is even more to say about the Nature Mill Automatic Compost Bin, but I don’t want to make this post a mile long! Read more about how it works and “earth facts” on Nature Mill’s website!
Thank you to Nature Mill for allowing me to purchase this composter at a discount. The discount in no way affected my review, and all opinions are my own.
Maria wants to live in a world where cloth diapers are the norm and moms can make parenting choices without judgement. When she’s not chasing her 18, 14 and 11-year old kids around, you might find her checking out the latest gadgets, organizing something (again) or exercising in the fresh air. 
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Thank for the VERY thorough review!
I had one of their earlier models many years ago. It worked pretty well but when we moved to our new place it just didn’t make sense to pack it up because we moved to a house with a big yard and we thought we would do composting the old fashioned out-door way.
What a mistake that was. A big stink pile outside our nice new home was not a good idea. It’s surprising how difficult it is to turn a big pile once it gets wet and heavy. It is much better to have a machine take care of the mixing. I am glad to see that they have a new and improved model now and it works better than the old one (which was a little quirky and noisy).
So now it’s time to start saving up for another one. Oh what color to get? Ha!
Yes and big piles of compost will of course attract all manner of critters. Dogs, rats, raccoons, flies, and of course worms (which you want anyway). You don’t have to turn a big pile, you can just let “compost happen” but it helps to turn it periodically and you will get much more granular compost texture without the mold and harmful bacteria if you turn it inside out several times per year.
What a thorough review! You really covered all aspects of this machine… now I have to go read your update to see how well it performed! 🙂
>Hey, I'm glad I'm not the only one who got a "waste collector" for her birthday (and was excited about it). LOL!!
>OK yeah, I want one of these. I thought about buying one but wasn't sure how well it would work. I may have to get one of these b/c I honestly do not know how we are going to deal with the maggots in our turning bin – which was still pricey as heck – my hubby bought it for my bday 🙂
>Maria, this looks so cool. Would love to have one and then maybe I would finally start the garden I've been wanting to have!So glad you joined in the blog hop fun at Friendly Friday this week. Following you back on GFC. Hope you have a great weekend! 🙂
>Ha, I totally understand. This is my toy. Garbage is fun now. 😉
>May I just say how jealous I am right now? 😉 They are super awesome but I agree, mighty pricey. I will make do with my black trash can with holes drilled in it that I made for fifteen bucks. Glad you got to play with it though! (Okay, I'm a freak for saying "Play" with something involving trash, but still… you get it, right? LOL)