Skip to main content
Sustain

Composting Made Easy, Thanks To My Bokashi!

We have always been a family who like to recycle, reuse and not fill landfill with our food waste. Since moving to South Africa and living with amazing wildlife, like baboons and mongoose, we’ve had to find new ways to get rid of our food waste (as sticking it in black bins is definitely not an option)…

And then we found Earth Probiotic Bokashi! Wow, what a great way to solve our problem. Readily available online to order your kit, it’s easy to maintain and turn your food into compost.

What is Bokashi? It’s basically a plastic bin, made from 65% recycled materials, which comes with:

  • A strainer, which is made from from 100% recycled polypropylene and sits in the bottom of the bin
  • Tap, which is fixed to the bin
  • Very strong, airtight plastic lid

What can you put in Bokashi? Basically everything that’s edible, including cooked and uncooked meat, seafood, bones, dairy, citrus and egg shells.

Air tight lid
Bokashi 25L bin
Tap to release the fermented liquids
Earth Bokashi to sprinkle between layers of scraps
2.5L bin for the kitchen counter

What next? You also need to purchase Earth Bokashi, which is like a sawdust material and is essential to help with pre-composting of food waste. The material is made with indigenous South African microbes and up-cycled materials.

With your completed kit, you can now begin to compost your food! See how we use our Bokashi below, we took photos of the process, so you can see what it’s like and how easy it is after your bin is full! We choose to bury our fermented scraps deep in the ground, as we have baboons here and we’re also working on a veggie patch! But, after two weeks you can empty your scraps in an Earth Worm Farm or use them under potting plants or just in your compost heap. Within 8 – 12 weeks you’ll then have a nutrient rich compost for your plants or garden.

We recommend purchasing two Bokashi bins, especially if you’re a plant-based eating household. We’re only two people and we manage to fill one in a month – just in time for the other to be ready to bury. So we have two bins to keep us covered. No more food waste going to landfill, and we get to enjoy watching our plants grow even bigger and healthier!

The Bokashi process

Your kitchen mini bin

Keep it in the fridge until your bin is full.

The Bokashi bin

Empty your scraps in here when your kitchen bin is full

Press the scraps each time

To maximise filling the bin, press down the scraps each time you add more to it

Add a handful of Earth Bokashi

Every time you add a layer of scraps, you must add Earth Bokashi too

When your bin is full

Leave the bin for at least 2 weeks before opening again

When fermented, empty the liquid

The liquid does smell, but it's great for the plants! Mix with water to make it go further.

We dig a hole to bury ours

To stop attracting animals we dig our compost very deep.

Now you can reuse the bin

Once you've removed the contents, clean the bin with water and start again!

Enriching our soil

By adding our scraps to the soil, our plants grow even better!
Krissie Gwynne

Author Krissie Gwynne

I'm a co-founder of OYOO. I love living by the sea, walking my dogs on the beach and sharing life with my partner in beautiful, wild South Africa - discovering nature and food!

More posts by Krissie Gwynne

Leave a Reply