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Vacuum-turned-everything brand Dreame has dropped its version of a hack for living without a garbage disposal. That's how I'm framing electric countertop "composter alternatives" that are just drying and condensing food, not making actual compost. That doesn't mean these appliances are pointless — they're still a brilliant way to keep your kitchen from reeking of old food rotting in the trash. That's an especially big deal in a small space like my apartment, where I put use of my beloved Mill food recycling bin on hold to test the Dreame S25P Food Waste Disposer for two weeks.

Design and price: Smaller footprint, lower price than others

The Dreame food waste disposer is incredibly slim and delightfully chic. Not that competitors like the Lomi 3 or Food Cycler are eyesores — they're cute enough, but very much scream "I'm an appliance with a bucket inside." Dreame's machine is literally just a beige rectangle. I could see this minimalist color and shape combo alone being the deciding factor for aesthetic-minded shoppers who prefer countertop appliances to be as subtle as possible.

I played around with the Dreame disposer's placement to test its versatility in the wild. I originally set it up on the end of my kitchen credenza that sits opposite the wall of cabinets and appliances, then moved it to my last free slab of countertop.

For being an appliance, the Dreame disposer doesn't look obnoxiously appliance-y among the rest of my decor. If you're fully maxed out on counter real estate, it certainly has the curb appeal to chill in harmony on another more styled flat surface near the kitchen.

Overall, Dreame's design has a negligibly smaller footprint in cubic inches than the Lomi 3. But the unique way that the Dreame disposer is oriented makes it better suited for a tight squeeze. It's less than eight inches wide with an oblong design that runs perpendicularly to the counter, very similar to how a Ninja Slushi sits.

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But the smartest part of the design is that the control panel is on top at the front instead of on the side like the Lomi. If your only free counter space was a sliver beside your coffee maker or blender, you'd still have front-facing access to the button that opens the lid or starts a cycle. If you have empty space in a cabinet or pantry, you could technically store the Dreame disposer away until you need to use it. It obviously wouldn't be instantly accessible, so you'd have to remember to get it out before you're ready to dump something in it.

Speaking of remembering to open the lid before your hands are full, the Dreame SF25's lid opening process is oddly impractical. It goes into standby mode after a few minutes of no interaction, so you actually have to tap twice to open the lid: once to wake the device up, and then once to open the lid. The buttons are more like a touchscreen than physical, pressable buttons, and more often than not, I don't have a free finger. I'm either waiting to push plate scrapings in with a fork or am carrying a sink strainer full of soggy food, using the other hand to keep the juice from dripping on the floor. I really miss my Mill's presser foot in times like these.

I could also really do without the voice assistant narration between each step. For an appliance that claims to be "whisper quiet," which it genuinely is when running a cycle, it feels counterintuitive to loudly announce that "the device is now in standby mode," "the door is opening," and "the door is closed," every single time. I hope there's a way to disable that and I just haven't found it yet.

What can go in the Dreame food waste disposer?

Dreame's list of acceptable food waste includes fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, eggshells, nuts and grains, small bones, and fibrous foods. That's a pretty standard lineup for indoor food waste bins. I found it odd that Dreame doesn't officially green-light dairy in the list. I throw cheese in there, and it's been fine. It's probably milk or globs of yogurt that would mess with the bucket's interior mechanism.

When thinking about who should buy one of these devices, residents of cities with mandatory food separation rules (like San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City) come to mind. The Dreame disposer would make the separation of daily food scraps a much less gross process, and again, its compact build feels ideal for small apartment living. When I lived in Brooklyn years ago and was trudging to a local compost drop-off with a dripping bag of melting frozen food scraps, I could have really used this damn Dreame machine.

If you are using an electric food waste condenser for collected curbside or community compost, you still have to follow the organization's rules of what can and can't go in. While NYC residents are allowed to toss meat, bones, and dairy into their curbside compost bins, many smaller community compost groups don't allow meat or dairy — the fat and protein in animal products attract pests to outdoor compost piles. That still applies to food waste in dried dirt form.

You'll barely know this thing is running

When enough scraps have piled up in the Dreame bucket, running a cycle is as easy as hitting start (there's just one setting). The stirring, drying, and grinding mechanism inside is legitimately inaudible, and shouldn't take more than six hours. At the end, you're left with a pile of dirt that's significantly smaller than the stack of food you started with. You can throw it in the trash if that's your only option. It'll take up less room and keep the bag smelling much fresher.

My household of three took a few days to completely fill the bucket up the first time. The 2.5-liter capacity is smaller than most competing countertop devices, but not by an inconvenient amount. I've been inclined to run a cycle before the bucket is full, anyway. You can't smell a thing when the lid is closed, but things can get diabolical when it's opened.

One of my only bones to pick with this product is the fact that its Amazon listing calls it an electric composter. It's not. No microbes are involved, so no, it's not creating fertilizer for your garden. (Dreame's website does refer to the SF25 as a food waste disposer with an end result that is "suitable for direct compost.") But why try to be something it's not? Marketing it as a device that downsizes your kitchen trash could strike a chord with a whole new group of people who don't care about composting. I have hope in the "buying a food waste disposer for convenience purposes" to "giving a shit about the United States' serious food waste problem" pipeline.