My initial thoughts are that I love it!! Got it for Christmas and couldn’t wait to get it started, but it was impossible to place in the most suitable position in the garden, as this was already occupied by my last plastic ‘darlek’bin.
So it fitted nicely, just outside the back door, alongside the household bins -exactly the same size as a wheelie bin.
Come the beginning of February, it was moved into position, as my other plastic bin was removed. All the rubbish from this bin was then transferred to the hotbin, as it still hadn’t rotted down.
My peelie bin is emptied twice/thrice a week, but you can add all sorts of waste to the Hotbin, not just vegetable waste but all food waste. They even say that you can add chicken carcasses, but I haven’t tried that. Left overs, yes, bread etc are all fine I even add the torn up insides of toilet rolls and cardboard egg boxes, plus paper shredding and newspaper. One of the main principles being not to let your bin get too wet, therefore you need to add bulk in the form of bark chippings or paper.
The waste seems to shrink down very quickly and temperatures have remained at 60 degrees even through this cold weather. Temperatures, now that it, at long last, is heating up a bit is averaging 70 degrees.
I am delighted so far, can’t wait to get some real compost and feel that it was money well spent.
For anyone interested in purchasing a Hotbin, I would advise against buying the starter kit as you could easily put those bits and pieces together yourself much more cheaply.
The Hotbin is highly insulated, so when you lift the lid you can feel the heat, but there is a temperature gauge in the lid which saves you loosing heat by lifting the lid.
Having said all of that, and bearing in mind that I just love this bin. I also have a garden waste wheelie bin, which is emptied by the council every other week and I really couldn’t do without that either, as I seem to produce lots of garden waste. So, in my opinion, you would still need to run the two side by side to cope with an average amount of garden and kitchen waste.
Maggie Duguid
Text and photos by Maggie Duguid, who is a member of the HPS North East Group.
