About Food Waste Recycling

The Bokashi Process: Recycling 100% of Food Waste

This unique recycling system uses bokashi to ferment food waste inside a sealed container. This means there's no rodents, no insects, no spoiling, and NO ODOUR. The end result is a pickled mass of food waste, which, when placed in a garden, break down into rich humus within a matter of days, releasing nutrients, microbes and structure to the soil.

And unlike other forms of recycling, such as composting and worm farming, there is no food waste you cannot put in the bokashi system treats paper, citrus, onions, dairy, even meat!

Eco Bokashi - How It Works

Bokashi is a generic Japanese word for "fermented organic matter". Eco Organics ferments a large range of organic materials, such as grains, animal manures and vegetable materials, to produce different varieties of Bokashi for different applications.

The Bokashi used in our Eco Bokashi Recycling Systems is crushed Australian grain (usually barley, wheat and/or rice mixture) fermented with our beneficial microbes and molasses. This material has a moderate nutrient value on its own, but is also teeming with billions of beneficial microbes which go straight to work when in contact with organic material, such as the food scraps in the Bokashi bins, or the organic matter within the soil.

The microbes work in an anaerobic environment - i.e. with no Oxygen - so they don't produce heat or odours, there is no leachate problem, and no insects or rodents either. Bokashi can be used for:

  • recycling waste
  • controlling natural odours
  • conditioning soil
  • septic tanks - increasing activity and clearing blocks
  • treating animal droppings
  • addition to potting soils and mixes, and seed raising mixes
  • accelerating existing compost heaps and bins
  • adding to worm farms
  • farming and horticulture.

What is Eco Bokashi Fermentation, and why is it so much better than composting?

Fermentation is a process of treating organic waste which uses anaerobic microbes, rather than aerobic microbes. It is similar to the process of pickling - a pickled onion for example still looks like an onion, although inside it has changed completely.

The advantages of this process are many, including reduced greenhouse gas emission, a more nutritious end-product, and far easier management.

A comparison of the two processes is as follows:

Traditional Composting

  • Can produce foul odours
  • Can attract rodents
  • Can attract flies and other insects
  • Produces heat
  • Requires mechanical and labour input
  • Produces significant amounts of greenhouse gases
  • Biomass is reduced by up approx 50%
  • Takes up to 6 months to produce
  • Is unstable and reactive until complete
  • Many nutrients and organic material lost in heating process
  • Wastes leachate which can become an environmental hazard
  • Some products are not recommended for composting

Eco Bokashi Fermenting

  • Sweet-smelling, or odourless
  • No rodents
  • Does not attract any insects, including flies
  • Produces no heat, all energy retained
  • Done in-vessel and requires no turning
  • Produces minimal greenhouse gases
  • Biomass is reduced by less than 10%
  • Takes about 4 weeks to produce
  • Is stable and storable immediately
  • All nutrients, organic material and microbes retained.
  • Leachate is re-used, all nutrients retained
  • ANY organic material can be fermented

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