“What we want is for this to become something very normal,” explains Eugeni Castejón, founder of Compostadores. “In the same way you have an oven, refrigerator or microwave in the kitchen, you’d have a composter on the terrace or in the garden.”

Castejón sees composting as critical to reducing waste since organic material makes up 40%, by weight, of our household trash.

Back in 2002, when Castejón discovered it difficult to buy a composter in Spain, he decided to start his own company to fill that gap in the market. Today, he both manufactures his own composters in Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain, and sells those of others (like the popular Australian invention, the Can-O-Worms).

To appeal to a mass market, compostadores allows you to customize your composter. Their combox has been nicknamed “lego” for the way each unit fits into the next. You start with one 300 liter box and can continue to add boxes as your garden grows.

What also makes compostadores unique is their primary resource is 100% recycled plastic. They only use the plastics, like water bottles and yogurt containers, from Barcelona’s recycling programs. “We only use, this is very important, resources that are very difficult to recycle,” explains Castejón, “that is, either we reuse it, or it goes to a landfill or an incinerator”.

In this video, Castejón shows us the many uses of their Combox system- to hold dead leaves, as a planter, etc- and how composters allow us to turn our organic waste into a valuable resource for our plants.