Our Story

A San Francisco Start

NatureMill inventor Russ Cohn is not easily impressed. Back in 2002, his home town of San Francisco started collecting food scraps for composting, in addition to collecting bottles and cans for recycling. 'Now that really makes sense,' he thought as he eagerly tossed his food scraps into the shiny new green bin provided by the city. Less landfill trash means less global warming. Way to go San Francisco!

Unfortunately, it wasn't so easy. Within a few weeks, the green bins up and down his block became grimy and insect infested. A raccoon family moved into the neighborhood. Trash day became even more unpleasant than usual - especially on a warm day. Soon compost collection became mandatory for all buildings in San Francisco, with "trash police" handing out steep fines to those don't comply.

A Chance Discovery

Then a funny thing happened. Russ went on vacation and forgot to empty hia kitchen compost bucket. A nasty surprise awaited his return: an unbearable smell, fruit flies, and a very unpleasant clean-up job.

Grudgingly cleaning the bucket, he noticed it was warm - evidence that microorganisms were hard at work. The composting process had already begun right in kitchen bucket! Just a little more oxygen, some mixing, insulation, and a filter could make the process clean and reliable. As an MIT graduate and garage tinkerer, it wasn't long until he got to work building a better composter. Dozens of patents and prototypes, the NatureMill home compost machine was born. Within months the product took off and was picked up by Home Depot and Amazon. The rest is history....

We're up to great things. Just watch us. Someday everyone in the world will make compost,
and what a difference that will make.

Follow us on twitter:

Site design: Showing On