This was my first project as a master student in Lund. The project was called Next Step, and the goal was to design a product or service that would provide the world with a brighter future.

 

My project was called; Dirt to Dirt, in which i designed a new type of indoor composting unit that would make it easier and simpler to start and maintain your own compost.

 

900 000 tons of food is thrown away every year in Sweden, that is almost 100 kg of food per person.

This huge amount of food that is thrown away leads to a release of 1 860 000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

 

These facts was the start of my project; how could you make something good out of something that bad?

-What can you do with the leftover food or food that gone bad, in such a way that it doesn’t harm but nourish our planet?

Bokashi is a method of intensive composting. It can use an aerobic or anaerobic inoculation to produce the compost. Once a starter culture is made, it can be used to extend the culture indefinitely, like yogurt culture.

Since the popular introduction of effective microorganisms (EM), Bokashi is commonly made with only

molasses, water, EM, and wheat bran. 

 

In home composting applications, kitchen waste is placed into a container which can be sealed

with an air tight lid. These scraps are then inoculated with a Bokashi EM mix.

The EM are natural lactic acid bacteria, yeast, and phototrophic bacteria that act as a microbe community within the kitchen scraps, fermenting and accelerating breakdown of the organic matter.

The user would place alternating layers of food scraps and Bokashi mix until the container is full. Once fully fermented, the food waste is then typically buried in a garden where it breaks down quickly producing nutrient rich soil. 

 

My idea was to design a bokashi composting unit, that should have the same functional features that todays units has. These features are for example; cheap to produce, being stackable during shipping, 

highly recyclable and being easy to operate. 

 

My contributions with a new compost-unit was to make the buyer decide not to place it under the sink or in any other space where it wont be seen. 

But rather placing it visible for everyone, and saying “look at me I’m composting, with style”. 

 

For this to happen the final result had to look desirable and proper manufactured, so that it wouldn’t look like “just” a plastic bucket.

This product is meant for all of those who likes gardening, or those who just want to give their indoor plants some extra boost.

   The Bokashi composting system is mainly used indoors, this is perfect for those who wants to keep a compost all year around. It doesn’t freeze like the outdoor system and you don’t need to handle slimy worms. 

   Fill it up and put it away for two to three months and then its done for being used on your outdoor plants, your greenhouse plants, your balcony plants or even your indoor plants. The bokashi juice is perfect to poor on your indoor plants for extra nutritions, instead of changing the dirt.

   The product is meant to all who wants to try composting without getting dirty. Keep it on your sink, under your sink. Place it in your scullery or on your balcony. No odours and no mess.

   For people whose been composting their whole life or fore those who just started, either way it’s super easy and super fun.

The sketching in this project gave ma a chance of trying to come up with a shape that had to work with the structure and fixed volume of the compost. 

 

The compost needed a; volume of ten litres, a drain for the compost juice, a tap to drain the juice, an air sealed lid and the user must be able to stick a glass under the tap which is placed on the bottom of the unit to be able to tap the juices.

 

The challenge was to come up with a shape that blended in with the rest of a modern kitchen environment. 

How do you make a person engaged in something that they haven’t dealt with before? 

You make that something cheap to buy and easy to maintain, something isn’t worth doing

if its not simple and little time consuming!

 

 

When discussing my design with Olof Kolte we came to the conclusion that my first design was probably going to be he most expensive compost unit on the market. 

When I did my design I forgot to look at the design from a production perspective, which lead to a very expensive manufacturing cost.

 

By using the backside of a newspaper and a black ink pen we started sketching on a new idea that production wise would cost as little as possible. It would still be more expensive than an ordinary plastic bucket, but the design included more features than a regular bucket, features that had to be included to get a proper compost unit.

 

Droppangles, material thickness and air seal with gravity was just some of the topics discussed.

 

The new idea was to redesign the plastic bucket into a compost bucket.

 

The bottom of the bucket is slanted towards the draining hole so that no fluids will stay behind and mold (see right lower picture to the left). The drain is easy to take out and is resting on four pegs when placed inside the bucket (see right lower picture to the left). The Lid is designed so that it slides tightly into the bucket, and with the shape of he bucket it becomes a double level seal so that no odours escape (see left lower picture to the left) The buckets feet are integrated in the design and lifts the draining tap from the bottom so that it is easy to drain. The handlebar is put through the bucket and locked with metal bearings, this limits weak points in the structure so that nothing will break (see middle lower picture to the left). The grip on the lid is a part of the lid which limits parts both of the model and of manufacture parts. The grip on the lid is a part of the lid which limits parts both of the model and of manufacture parts.