Subpod: a simpler way to compost

3rd February 2021 | Eativity editors

Composting isn’t just for avid gardeners and urban farmers. After learning about the environmental impact of food waste in landfills, Australia’s Next Top Model contestant Kelsey Martinovich began composting with Subpod – an in-garden compost system that eliminates the hard work of traditional composting – to help offset her carbon footprint.

“It takes 25 years for a lettuce leaf to decompose in a landfill, and that blew my mind,” Martinovich says. Food can’t decompose normally in landfill, as there is a lack of oxygen. Instead, it breaks down anaerobically (without oxygen), which generates methane – a greenhouse gas that’s about 28 times more potent than C02.

Kelsey Martinovich aerates her father’s Subpod, which she gave to him as a present.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, it’s estimated that if food waste represented a country, it would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet. But composting isn’t just about helping the planet. For Martinovich, it also makes her happy.

“It’s so beneficial and gives you so much joy,” she says. “It’s exciting to watch things grow.”

In 2019, Martinovich pre-ordered a Subpod – a product developed in Byron Bay that has a unique underground ventilated design that eliminates smells, mess and pests from composting. Subpod also allows worms to directly transfer nutrients from food waste into the soil, resulting in highly nutritious homegrown produce with virtually no maintenance.

Since Subpod was founded less than two years ago, the start-up has rapidly grown, gaining global recognition and achieving its mission of getting 20,000 people composting in 2020.

Today, Martinovich and her father Paul are a composting dynamic duo. They divert food waste from landfill to build healthy soils and grow food with the help of their Subpod.

“It sometimes takes me weeks to fill up my bin that goes into landfill now,” Martinovich admits. “Everything just goes into my food waste or my recycling bin. It’s changed my way of thinking and it feels amazing.”

Two Subpod set-ups, in which the raised beds are naturally fertlised by vermicompost (worm composting).

Other celebrity Subpod users include US ABC News chief meteorologist Ginger Zee and Australia’s Damon Gameau, an environmental activist and actor/filmmaker best known for directing and starring in That Sugar Film.

To find out more about Subpod and the benefits of composting, head to subpod.com.au