Reencle Essential Review: Same Scraps, Lower Price

There’s a new Reencle composter in town, and of all the features I thought I might miss from the trailblazing original Reencle Prime, I didn't think it would be the auto-close lid.

The overly sensitive opening sensor annoyed me at first, but I ended up not giving the Prime’s lid another thought during my nearly 1.5 years of use. In hindsight, this is a testament to its convenience. It even has a setting for it to auto-open. Walk over to the receptacle, it opens; dump your scraps in, it closes. Buttons and lids remain clean and untouched by dirty, slimy hands.

Reencle’s brand-new, lower-cost unit, the Essential, is pretty much the same as the Prime (which is still available), with a few small tweaks—updated looks, a larger shovel, and a lid you have to manually close and a button you have to press to open. The button and lid already dirty after only three weeks, but my family consistently forgets to push the lid closed, having grown used to the auto-close lids of both our trash can and our old Prime. At least a few days a week, I will be caught off guard by a constant beeping—the Essential letting us know its lid is still open.

Aside from that, the Essential delivers the same user-friendly, close-to-compost-producing experience as its older sibling, but for $150 less.

Compost in Progress

You may have heard of kitchen composters before, whether the Lomi, FoodCycler, or the original Reencle Prime. It’s a compelling fantasy: Food scraps go in the bin, and out comes ready-to-use compost.

Unfortunately, for all of these machines, it’s just that: a fantasy. Many of them (like Lomi and FoodCycler) simply grind and dry the scraps to create a material that looks kind of like dirt. Sure, it’s odorless and shelf-stable, but if you want to use it in your garden, you’ll need to mix it into potting soil at a very low ratio—like 1:10, or even 1:20 if you’re processing a lot of meat and dairy.

Reencle, meanwhile, actually uses thermophilic bacteria (including Bacillus and Actinomycetes) to break down the waste, resulting in a biologically active material that, while not ready-to-use compost, is at least part of the way there. There are a couple of other machines that also do this, and I’ve tried them, but they’re bulkier, pricier, and louder than Reencle—don’t discount the noise-polluting effects of an audible fan running 24/7, especially if you live in a small space. (Reencle’s large-capacity Gravity model was—and remains—the only food recycler/composter I’ve ever tested that was truly silent at all times.)