Quick and not so dirty: No-sweat composters

Last weekend, I fed my plants and vegetables some compost made from my kitchen scraps and yard waste. But I didn't spend months outside mixing piles of the organic brew with a pitchfork. Instead, I whipped up a batch in 14 days, with the push of a button — in my laundry room.

Call it speed composting. Manufacturers and retailers are rolling out gadgets that help consumers make compost faster, more discreetly and, in some cases, with less of the "yuck" factor. The move comes as more cities are encouraging and even mandating that residents who don't compost at home take time to divide their food and yard waste from other trash so it can be recycled elsewhere. San Francisco is implementing a new rule requiring that its citizens separate such items into green "composting" carts or potentially face fines.

Compost is earthy material produced from the natural decomposition of organic matter such as grass clippings, leaves, vegetable remains and coffee grounds. It's nutritious for plants and lawns and reduces the amount of trash sent to landfills. Yard trimmings and food residuals constitute about 24% of the U.S. municipal solid-waste stream, the Environmental Protection Agency says.

But many homeowners who readily recycle don't bother composting. (Guilty.) That's partly because it's more of a hassle than just tossing plastic bottles and newspaper into colored bins.

To make compost, homeowners typically mix piles of waste with a pitchfork in the yard, bury it, or use bins and tumblers to contain and blend materials. Chemistry is involved, such as balancing the ratio of carbon ("brown" stuff such as fall leaves) and nitrogen ("green" stuff such as veggies). Patience is involved, too; it usually takes between eight weeks and a year to get finished compost, depending on the method.

"Composting isn't Green 101," says Jennifer Schwab, director of sustainability for the Sierra Club's Green Home Web site, which instructs visitors on composting. She admits, too, "When bugs and stuff get on it, as much as I'm a green person, I get disgusted by that."

However, innovations in the compost-bin marketplace, along with the new laws, are fueling interest in composting. For instance, the NatureMill Automatic Composter — one of four units I've been testing — is a small plug-in device that heats waste to speed decomposition (hence my 14-day turnaround) and automatically mixes everything so you don't have to. Since it's designed to be housed indoors, it can save users the step of collecting scraps in pails that then must be carried out to a compost bin. The newest model launching this month borrows a page from Apple's iPod and comes in eight colors; it also boasts a "heavy-duty" mode to handle large loads after, say, a dinner party.

• Facebook users: Become a fan of MSN Real Estate

NatureMill Inc. in San Francisco says it sold 10,000 of its automatic units last year and is on track to double or triple that in 2009. Founder Russ Cohn, who has an engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created his first prototype five years ago after growing weary of "moving and reshuffling" compost piles in his San Francisco yard. His aim: to make the humble composter "sound, smell and feel like any household appliance."

Let your filth fester into fertilizer

Also new this year: the Ecomposter, a futuristic, Sputnik-like globe that holds 71 gallons of material and can rotate on a wheeled stand. About 20,000 have been sold since May at spots such as Walmart, Home Depot, Costco and independent garden-supply companies, according to New York-based maker Systems Trading Corp. And this summer, Cascade Manufacturing Sales Inc. in Bellingham, Wash., introduced a compact bin called the Worm Factory 360, with stackable layers that form a sort of high-rise to house the 1,000 or more hungry invertebrates that do the heavy lifting.

Meanwhile, Web site compostbins.com says it has seen a 50% increase in sales over the past year, particularly for composting units that can be housed indoors. "Many folks don't want the pitchfork approach, and we're seeing more technology coming into the tumblers," says Jason Goldberger, chief merchandising officer of Omaha, Neb.-based Hayneedle Inc., which runs 200 Web sites, including compostbins.com.

Such innovations are wooing a new generation of composting enthusiasts, including Jenny Hall of Sebastopol, Calif. She tried old-fashioned methods but says they're "a pain, and I don't have time to do all the churning that is necessary." In April, she bought a NatureMill unit, which she tucked in her pantry. "Oh, my gosh — what a difference," she says.