Kitchen waste adds up fast, both at home and in landfills. But getting rid of food scraps without adding to a big problem requires living in a city with an advanced recycling system, or home composting… which usually requires a home with a yard. Marco Balsinha's Uroboros home vermicomposter might help space-constrained and aesthetics-aware people lessen their impact and make some excellent food for their plants.

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The Uroboros design is the outcome of Balsinha's final thesis, finishing his Master in Product Design at the ESAD, Caldas da Rainha. It uses stacking pots which covertly hold a mix of dirt and food waste broken down faster with the help of worms, corked from below and capped on top by a planter that indicates the current level of decomposition. As Balsinha explains,

Uroboro is a modular system with 4 different pieces of red clay that can be extended by adding further pieces up without conditioning the mobility of earthworms throughout the whole system and it uses the properties of clay as a mediator of odour, moisture and temperature.

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Indoor composting could be easy, but it's largely done outside the home for obvious reasons: it takes up space and it has the potential to smell. On the other hand, most existing indoor options look like gadgety, bulky, ominous breadmakers. The Uroboros system addresses both of these concerns and adds style with its vertical dual-purpose shape and smell-masking terracotta. 

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This ancient material can be both glazed shut or breathable and porous, elements which have been used in innumerable household and production applications where it helps monitor the dampness (and limit the stink) within. 

Mmm, compost tea!

The multi-tier design is a particularly good fit for vermicomposting, where new scraps (a.k.a. fresh tasty worm food) can be added to the top, while an older batch of more finished compost rests below, before being removed and used. When well-filled, the open bottoms of the pots allow worms the freedom to move between the sections. The bottom stopper allows the collection of "compost tea," a composting byproduct that looks and sounds disgusting, but works like a supercharged energy drink for plants. 

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The project was helped by mentoring professors José Frade and Luís Pessanha, and prototypes were tested with a variety of households to positive review. 

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I can't say whether you'd feel fresh keeping it in your bedroom, but it could make a nice addition to a balcony... and help feed your greenery. 

Would you use a worm garden?