Our Range of in-vessel Rocket food waste composters
The Rocket Composter is a robust, high quality machine that processes commercial scale food waste and green waste on site, using natures own process of composting.
Invented by Tidy Planet and now in its 20th year of manufacturing, there are over 1,000 machines in operation across the globe.
Composting on site is the most sustainable way of dealing with food or green waste and converting it into a precious resource that’s rich in nutrition and organic matter and perfect for capturing carbon and improving soil health.
Rocket Composters are being used in a multitude of sectors, helping cities, colleges, universities, luxury hotels, oil field canteens, mines and prisons and many more to close the food waste loop and care for our planet.
How do rocket composters work?
Though Tidy Planet’s range of Rocket Composters go from 20kg up to 5000kg per day, they all follow the same basic principles, optimising and speeding up the natural composting process.
Food, green or animal wastes are loaded into the machine over the course of the day, along with woodchip to provide essential carbon and help with aeration.
Then, naturally occurring microbes within the process get to work, with the Rocket adding gentle aeration and mixing with controlled air flow to help them thrive.
After only 10-14 days, the organic waste comes out of the other end of the machine converted into a valuable resource, an end to end process with minimal energy consumption and maximum environmental benefit.
What are the advantages of rocket food waste composting?
Our machines benefit from 20 years of constant development and improvement and are built to last, with few moving parts and high quality construction. In fact we have many machines still in operation after more than 15 years of active service.
Because Rocket composting at source converts food waste using natural processes, minimal energy and no transportation the carbon footprint is as low as possible.
The process not only eliminates food waste but produces an organic material that’s perfect not only for improving soil health and growing plants but replacing the need for artificial fertilisers.
And finally, with many years of experience gained from helping businesses on their composting journey our clients can be assured they will get all the support they need to compost successfully.
For more details on the multiple benefits of composting click here
Our rocket composter range
Clients and countries creating rocket compost – click the dots to see more
See how the Rocket Composter works
Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons
Raymond Blanc’s Michelin-starred luxury hotel and restaurant invested in our composting and food waste drying technology, to help the site to compost 94% of its annual food waste. The compost is then used in the hotel’s vegetable and herb gardens and orchards, to grow organic produce.
City of Glasgow College
Our A900 Rocket Composter is helping the college to process 26 tonnes of food waste per year on site. It’s also facilitating the reduction of city pollution, by omitting the need for weekly disposal truck visits, which previously collected the material for off-site processing.
BP Indonesia
Two B2500 Rocket Composters and a Dehydra Dewaterer are currently converting food waste into compost at BP’s multi-million-pound Integrated Waste Management Facility, at a gas pipeline expansion project in Indonesia. And this solution is also creating jobs for the locals.
Merchant Taylors School
Merchant Taylors School – one of the ‘great nine’ schools in England is the proud owner of a Dehydra Dewaterer and an A900 Rocket Composter. The equipment is not only helping the school save on expensive off-site waste disposal costs, but they’re creating a compost resource that’s used across the site’s sports fields too.
Ford Motor Company
Food waste is a global issue affecting many sectors, with education nearing the top of that list. So, it’s no surprise that an increasing number of schools, colleges and universities across the country are looking for ways to boost their green credentials and reduce their carbon footprint.
Les Alchimistes
Les Alchimistes is a French social enterprise, committed to the green and sustainable management of food waste. The organisation started its food waste composting journey in 2017, when the team invested in an A900 Rocket Composter, as part of its pilot project in a disused hospital building – to demonstrate to the French government that a decentralised organic waste collection system would be an environmentally beneficial model for the polluted city of Paris.
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Here are some our most commonly asked questions…
This is one of the most common things we’re asked here at Tidy Planet, and the answer is no, they’re very different.
Dried food waste has the water evaporated out of it at a high heat, to reduce its moisture and weight by up to 90% resulting in an inert, stabilised powder, that can be used as a valuable fuel resource,
and not in the ground to grow produce.
That’s because as it hasn’t been through a complex biological transformation like compost, it’s missing in beneficial properties that aid moisture retention, soil structure, and microorganisms that benefit
the ground and help plant growth.
As a result, the composting process takes up to 14 days, while dehydration only takes one.
Any process claiming to produce compost in 24 hours isn’t producing ‘compost’ at all.
Food waste drying is a great solution for firms which simply want to reduce their off-site disposal costs quickly and decrease the amount of food waste being landfilled and don’t want to produce a compost
resource on site. However, the drying process uses more energy than composting, so has a higher carbon footprint.
VIEW OUR FOOD WASTE DEHYDRATION EQUIPMENT
VIEW NOWREAD MORE ABOUT COMPOSTING VS. DRYING
VISIT OUR FAQSYes, you can – but only under the right conditions…
As environmental awareness has grown, compostable packaging has had a surge in adoption and usage among both individuals and businesses alike.
The truth is that these sustainable, plant-based packaging alternatives are only better than their single-use counterparts if they are indeed composted, otherwise they’re simply a costlier route to landfill.
All compostable packaging is designed to break down naturally when composted, but it needs to be processed under the correct conditions – just like food or garden waste. Therefore, you need to ensure that your packaging is separated
from your general waste, and that you have a system in place which guarantees it goes to a certified composting facility, or you can do it yourself, on site!
Some packaging manufacturers have started to put collection and local composting measures in place for their products, all at a fee for the customer, but here at Tidy Planet we’re flying the flag all the way for on-site commercial composting solutions.
By having your own equipment on premises, not only can you close the loop and save on the costs and carbon emissions associated with third-party collections, but you can also create a valuable resource in the process.
MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT COMPOSTABLE PACKAGING?
Head over to our FAQs page!
It supports soil regeneration, reversing the effects of climate change and it has both environmental and financial advantages for businesses.
In a word NO!
Composting requires the natural action of microbes to breakdown the complex chemical molecules in food waste. Any equipment producing compost in 24 hrs is a heating process removing the water and simply producing dried food waste. This shouldn’t be used as a soil improver or growth medium as you would compost. In the UK after drying food waste remains classified as waste.
But don’t take our word for it, see below regulatory guidance from the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency on the subject
“Composting” is defined in the Waste Management Licensing (Scotland) Regulations 2011 (WMLR), as– “the autothermic [i.e. self-heating] and thermophilic [i.e. 40-80°C] biological decomposition and stabilisationof biodegradable waste under controlled aerobic conditions that result in a stable sanitised material that can be applied to land for the benefit of agriculture, horticulture or ecological improvement”.
Processes that do not meet the definition of composting but treat food waste using heat, chemicals or biological agents to reduce the water content or volume, may be suitable for the pre-treatment of food waste prior to its separate collection and onward transport to an authorised treatment facility, e.g. an in- vessel composting (IVC) or an anaerobic digestion (AD) facility. However the residues from such processes remain waste, are not compost and are not suitable for application to land