Starting up: TerraBox Composter
Interview with TerraBox – when furniture meets nature
TerraBox strives to close the biowaste cycle locally by providing home composters that come in a high-quality furniture design. Currently, a big proportion of the biowaste produced in Europe ends up in landfills or is incinerated, leading to dangerous GHG emissions and a loss of the soil-enriching potential of organic waste. An easy solution to mitigate this? Home composting! Composting is the natural process of recycling organic matter, such as leaves and food scraps, into a valuable fertiliser that can enrich soil and plants. The resulting decomposed matter, which often ends up looking like fertile garden soil, is called compost.
TerraBox set out to bring home composters into communities to close the bio-waste cycle locally and turn composting into a new sustainable movement. A TerraBox is a home composter that comes in a high-quality furniture design. Inside the TerraBox there is a fully removable worm box that turns your organic waste into valuable humus. Humus consists of pure nutrients, perfect for all your plants at home and in your garden. It's the perfect solution if you want to make the most out of your bio food scraps or if you don't have access to an organic waste recycling system.
1) How did TerraBox start out?
One home-built worm composter on a Hamburgian balcony got two long-time friends talking. We were instantly fascinated by how the box would let us observe natures power to recycle from up close. And we realised how much of our valuable organic resources in form of kitchen scraps still ends up in the residual waste bin, especially in Hamburg and other big urban areas in Germany.
We started researching and realised that there was a clear need for a more attractive, modern and urban narrative around home composting. Why can’t recycling be sexy? For us, an urban home composter should be a timeless design furniture piece. It should be super clean, odourless and easy to use. But most importantly, it should be more than a box with worms inside that wastes precious space in our apartments – it should be a stool or a side table that incidentally turns your food scraps into amazing fertiliser for your plants. With that in mind, we created TerraBox.
© Photo Credit: TerraBox
2) What’s the problem?
The way the world is fed today is fundamentally unsustainable. Industrial agriculture has left much of our cultivated soils depleted, releasing large amounts of previously sunk carbon into the atmosphere. At the same time, unhealthy soils are less productive and the food produced on them is of poor nutritional value. And all this is happening while the world’s population is projected to grow to 10 billion people within this century, further increasing the pressure on our food systems.
To fight climate change and to put healthy food on our plates, we need to close the nutrient cycle by giving back to the soil what we are currently extracting. Organic waste and its soil-improving potential are a key part of this equation. The European Environment Agency (EEA) has understood that and put the creation of a circular waste management system high on the policy agenda. A big proportion of the bio-waste produced in Europe still ends up in landfills or is incinerated, leading to dangerous GHG emissions and a loss of the soil-enriching potential of bio-waste. And this is even true for countries with well-developed waste separation systems like Germany or Denmark. Currently, only 64% of the German and 50% of the Danish national bio-waste is collected and treated separately. Central bio-waste recycling systems require a lot of energy for collection, transportation, and treatment facilities. And in many densely populated urban areas, there is simply no room for more bins or large collection trucks passing through. Another issue of central bio-waste treatment systems is plastic contamination and its effect on the quality of the final compost or digestate.
The EEA clearly states that home composting, if done properly, is the most sustainable way of treating organic waste. Our goal is to bring home composters into communities to close the biowaste cycle locally and turn composting into a new sustainable movement! A share of our earnings will support soil regeneration projects around the world.
3) Which SDGs does TerraBox tackle and how?
TerraBox addresses SDG 2 Zero Hunger, SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production.
We want to improve cities waste management and decrease the collective footprint of urban areas. We promote a circular approach to food consumption and agriculture, and we plan to support soil regeneration initiatives once we are fully up and running. We produce locally in Hamburg to ensure high quality, but also to pay fair wages and support the regional economy. The short distance also reduces transportation emissions.
4) What are the core values of TerraBox?
The most important part of starting our own business is that we can play with our ideas about how enterprises should act tomorrow. This entails a clear focus on impact before profit and long-term steward-ownership thinking over short-term exit strategies.
5) How can people support TerraBox?
The easiest way to support us on our journey is to get yourself a TerraBox, start composting and share your stories with us and your family and friends. #spreadthehumus
To learn more about TerraBox, visit their website https://en.terrabox.bio/,
or check them out on Instagram @terrabox.composter.
