I love how this hangs on our waste bins and how easy it is to use. But after one day of meal prep it’s full-egg shells, coffee grounds and filters, strawberry stems, grape vines, cheese rinds, lettuce butts, avocado pits…we prepare all our meals and we have yet to find a compost bin that doesn’t have us taking out the compost every day. Sigh.
Fits well and looks great in my kitchen. No mess and no smell. The lid shuts tight and the unit is solid with a nice plastic insert to lift the bag with no spillage. The compost bags are a nice fit with enough overhang to easily tie up and toss in the green bin.
I will start by saying I love Simplehuman and their products. All of the trash bins throughout my home are from them! I saw the compost caddy and I really liked the idea of having it so handy (I had been previously throwing food scraps in a bowl and keeping it in the freezer which was a pain to empty because the food would freeze to the bowl!). I also liked how it claimed to keep the bugs out because fruit flies are the bane of my kitchen existence!
So, you can imagine my surprise when, after using it for two days, I open the lid and a cloud of fruit flies burst from it! And not only that, but the included compostable bags starting composting so quickly that the food and it's liquids were seeping all over the inside of the bin. It does come with a plastic insert which was easy enough to remove and clean, but I wasn't expecting to have to clean up a mess each time I switched out the bag and chase down the bugs that lived inside!
I tried switching out the bag more often, but it just doesn't seem feasible for me as I don't produce enough food scraps to fill the bin as often as it needs to be changed to avoid bugs and the bag composting on you. It also creates the need to buy replacement bags a lot more often which can start to get expensive quickly.
Needless to say it now just sits dormant and I've gone back to using my bowl in the freezer method. Maybe one day the compostable bags will get better, and maybe they can take another look at the seal on the lid, but the model I have now just isn't there, yet.
I love this thing! No more stinky, buggy (gnats) trash. Love how I can use it on the counter for prepping, then snap it right back onto the main trash can. The bags really do break down — I just wish they lasted a little longer to get me to trash day on one bag but that’s minor. Overall: pure genius and made beautifully!