I totally missed the boat on the circular economy post-athon, but the in-class discussions on Pela's phone cases reminded me of something I think is worth sharing for the people who liked what they saw from Pela -- the Lomi.
The Lomi is a small-sized kitchen appliance, about the size of a crock pot or pressure cooker, and it's designed to process pretty much any kind of food waste, other than hard bones, dense fruit pits (avocados, mangoes, etc.), and grease or oils. Importantly, and claimed to be a unique feature among (somewhat) similar products, it processes items in a way that preserves microbial life to maximize follow-on decomposition and the benefits of using your own food waste as a soil additive. It is also has a setting used to process bioplastics, so items such as disposable cutlery and of course, Pela cases can be broken down and returned to nature much more quickly. This is all accomplished through an hours-long cycle of heating and grinding that greatly reduces the volume of materials and makes their components more easily accessible to organisms that can further break them down in nature.
While the Lomi might not have much appeal for someone with an established sustainable lifestyle, where waste is already minimized and food scraps are put to use in a home garden, it seems aimed at people who want to reduce their impacts on environmental systems but have barriers that prevent them from doing so. The convenience of the Lomi, where you fill it up, push a button, and empty it when it's done, takes away the time comittment of managing a home compost setup. The ease of use (see: push a button) makes this waste reduction and nutrient recapturing available to anyone. It also seeks to greatly reduce the "icky" factor of dealing with food waste, touting quick and nearly odorless elimination of smelly food scrap piles, making it viable for people who are simply grossed out by their decomposing food waste.
While cost (~$450) will be prohibitive for many people, the accessibility in terms of use could lead to notable reductions in the mass of food waste that goes to landfills -- even if a person empties their Lomi into their trash, it's at least lowering the overall volume of what's collected while also reducing methane emissions. The byproduct could also be very useful for home or community gardening as a quicker way to get nutrients into soil than direclty composting scraps. Lastly, the focus on bioplastic processing (it has a special mode for these items) provides a powerful potential tool in terms of product circularity. Imagine a world where all of the convienient plastic products we use, like bottles and packaging, are all made to be biodegradable and at the end of their use, you pack them into this little machine to quickly reduce them to a soil additive. Mass adoption of Lomi, if it delivers on it's promises, could help solve the end-of-life issues of many different products.
We got in on their pre-order process, and ours should be showing up in a month or two, so I'll have some hands-on experience shortly!