Earthmaker Enterprises 

Some years ago a production engineer in Lower Hutt, the late Ray Cooper, invented the continuous-cycle composting system.

An entrepreneurial doctor, Lannes Johnson, came upon a backyard prototype and set about creating a company to commercialise the concept.

Michael Smythe joined Prodevco (later called Earthmaker Enterprises) as Design Director and Creationz Consultants undertook the product design work.

Traditional best-practice composting involves building three bins side-by-side and lifting and turning material from one bin to the next.

Cheap, single chamber plastic bins only work if material is regularly turned over. Usually it becomes a rotting, smelly pile. The continuous-cycle principle, proven by the inventor's plywood 'monstrosity', involves stacking the bins vertically so gravity does the hard work, and air flows up through the material which loosens as it spills from chamber to chamber.

The design challenge was to find a manufacturable, marketable means of delivering this concept to a growing international market.

Prototypes fabricated in sheetmetal established the optimum size and volume for domestic use, but were too expensive for production.

A rotationally-moulded version was successful at modest volumes. However, even in nested form, it was too bulky for economic transportation, and the rate of production was to slow for export volumes.

Having learned much about the product and the market the designer developed an injection-moulded version requiring a significant tooling investment. Compared to the rotationally-moulded unit, the injection-moulded knocked-down packaged Earthmaker retails for half the price, and four times as many fit into a container.

A manufacturer was contracted to produce and market the product within Australasia and sales volumes have been very satisfactory.

The process of continuous improvement has reached the stage where the Earthmaker is export-ready and research is being undertaken through NZTE.

A Palmerston North City Council trial has demonstrated that supplying ratepayers with Earthmakers is a cost-effective means of reducing methane/leachate producing organic waste in landfills.

Most importantly, there are many happy Earthmaker users finding that it provides the simplest way to process domestic organic waste. As a stakeholder in the project, the designer now has greater empathy with entrepreneurial clients.

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