Kitchen countertop a composter is a good idea. Instead of a smelly bucket of vegetable scraps and coffee grounds that breed fruit flies on your counter or attract mice to your yard, you can just put everything in a good electrical gadget, and at some undetermined time in the future, you will have an abundant supply of nutritious compost to use in your garden.
Unfortunately, no popular electronic device does this. Although some of these devices are marketed as “composters” and have instruction booklets and applications that explain all the ways one can compost, most kitchen composters will grind and dry your food scraps. Your garbage disposal will be much smaller and less smelly, but if you’re hoping to put eggshells and banana chips in the machine and magically churn out the kind of compost you can buy at the garden center, that’s not going to happen.
That means, you it can be combine small amounts of these reasons and make soil in a pot in very small proportions, or use them as a supplier of “real” compost piles, but most of these machines are designed for those who want to reduce the amount of food waste produced at home. This in itself is a legitimate goal, as food waste makes up 24 percent of municipal waste, which leads to the release of methane, a devastating greenhouse gas, as it breaks down in landfills.
Or maybe you’d just like your food items to be odorless and shelf-stable before putting them in your green waste bin for municipal or backyard compost. In any case, despite critics’ cries of greenwashing and corporate astroturfing, there is still value in these devices. They make people more aware of their food waste. They don’t use as much energy as you think they would (about 1 kilowatt hour was typical). And my top choice, Reencle Prime, even produces something shut up making compost.
Read on for our review, and when you’re done, check out our other kitchen-related guides, including the Best Coffee Makers, Best Toaster Ovens, Best Meat Subscription Boxes, and Best Meal Kit Delivery Services.
Updated April 2026: I’ve added the Terra II from GEME and Clear Drop’s Organics Collector to the category of other devices I’ve tried and confirmed the latest links and prices. I am currently testing Airthereal compost.
Content
Very Good Overall
As I mentioned above, none of these machines actually make ready-to-use compost, but the Reencle Prime comes close to a traditional compost bin. Popular in South Korea years before it was seen in the US, Reencle comes with the original ReencleMicrobe bag (which can be purchased separately for $65) containing activated carbon, wood pellets, glucose, and a host of patented bacteria ready to harvest. There is also a front-mounted carbon filter that goes into the rear.
At 14 x 15 x 22 inches, the Prime is too big for a kitchen counter, but it works just as well as a heated trash can. The lid can be opened using a sensor at the bottom or a button on the control panel, and your living things enter. That’s all. There are no cycles, pills, or auxiliary buckets to worry about. Even the app is completely optional. Within a few hours to days, depending on the substance, the remains break down into something that looks like a cross between dirt and dust.
The smell is not always pleasant, but it can often be reduced by using the Dry and Purify panel buttons or by adding what, in the composting dictionary, are called “brown spots”—dry, carbon-rich things like bread or shredded paper.
Photo: Kat Merck
Reencle also tends to not smell when fed a favorite diet of 1.5 pounds of scraps per day. Unlike other machines, it can also accept meat and milk. For larger homes, there’s the Reencle Gravity ($649), which is a few inches tall and can accept 3.3 pounds of trash per day. I also tested this and found it to be much quieter than the Prime—not that the Prime is noticeably louder, only about 30 decibels—but the Gravity is nearly as quiet, which is a nice bonus.
When the volume reaches the fill line, the Reencle base can be removed, mixed with clay soil at a ratio of 1:4, and left to cure for three weeks (I used a large tub in my garage). After that, it can be used for both outdoor and indoor plants. I used this resulting mix to great effect both inside and out.