Compost

Compost safely deals with biological waste, converting it into fresh Dirt. It is primarily used to process Polluted Dirt from Outhouses, but it can also compost Balm Lily Flowers to produce Dirt at no resource cost.

Duplicants will flip the compost based on Farm errand priority, and the speed of the task is affected by the Duplicant’s Strength attribute. The building stores up to 300 kg of material and, while active, heats both its contents and itself to 75 °C. Because of its very low Decor, it is best placed away from living areas, ideally in a separate room.

Compost is especially useful for turning waste into something immediately reusable. The resulting Dirt can be fed into farms or used as an ingredient in the Fertilizer Synthesizer. However, Polluted Dirt that carries a large number of germs, such as material coming from multiple toilets or from a Water Sieve, is not fully sterilized by the 75 °C processing temperature. In those cases, the Dirt produced by Compost can still spread Food Poisoning to plants that receive it.

• Compost is a convenient way to clear out Polluted Dirt from Outhouses.
• Composting Balm Lily Flowers produces Dirt without consuming valuable farming inputs.
• The fixed output temperature can be used to delete heat from the system.
• Polluted Oxygen does not come from the building itself; it is released by the Polluted Dirt being stored and processed inside it, similar to Polluted Dirt stored in a Storage Bin.
• When the gas or liquid pressure in the lower-left tile is below 1800 g, a Compost containing Polluted Dirt can emit 50 g of Polluted Oxygen per burst.
• The contents stored inside Compost exchange heat slowly with the surrounding space and with the tile to the left, except for vacuum Airflow Tiles and vacuum Mesh Tiles.

Because Compost actively heats its contents and produces poor Decor, it is usually best treated as industrial waste handling infrastructure rather than as a part of a main living or farming area. Placing it in a dedicated utility room keeps the heat and any incidental Polluted Oxygen away from the rest of the colony while still providing a steady source of Dirt.