"Kitchen Composters" Under the Microscope
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A USCC Legislative and Environmental Affairs Committee subgroup has been meeting since spring about the increase in home kitchen-top dehydration units claiming to provide “compost” in a day. The units have proliferated e-commerce platforms in the past year, with the term “kitchen composter” in their product description.
Made up of members Ron Alexander (Alexander & Associates), Nora Goldstein (BioCycle), Elsa Higby (OHOC), Matt Karmel (Offit Kurman), Kelly Schoonmaker (Stop Waste/Alameda County) and (Scott Smithline (Mill), the group has been devising strategies with USCC that involve both education and potential legal remedies. Ron Alexander has already written articles like this one to raise awareness.
These strategies are heavily grounded in the official definition of compost codified in 2018 by the Association of American Food and Plant Control Officials (the group of state officials in charge of labelling regulations for food and plant products nationwide). This definition requires thermophilic and mesophilic stages of compost as well as stabilization. See the definition here.
We will be providing more detail about this issue and our plan at the Member Meeting on Feb. 6, 2024 at COMPOST2024. Watch for a web page coming soon.
