Vermicomposting: How worms can reduce our waste - Matthew Ross

Key Takeaways

you think of all the food made in the world each year hard to picture then imagine that you are all of humanity and on a plate in front of you is the one lovely annual meal you make for yourself you did all sorts of work putting that meal on your table you must be eager to consume the fruits of your labor and the vegetables and meats and waffles of your labor too right well oddly enough a third of that meal ends up in the trash a third of the food we eat globally an estimated 1.3 billion tons ends up as waste all the work we put into producing that food is wasted and what's worse it costs us America alone spends an estimated one hundred and sixty five billion dollars a year managing food waste we're wasting food energy and money perhaps worst of all we're wasting the chance to change to make the system of food consumption more efficient if you want to bring on that change you should know about a humble yet diligent and ever so crucial ally the worm worms convert organic waste and other compostable products into natural fertilizers up to 75% of what we put in the waste stream can become food and bedding material for vermicompost you can create a worm bin in your own home to see the composting process in action first off you need worms and not your typical earthworms you need red worms ice any ax foet EDA the species responsible for most vermicompost Inge in North America these red wigglers are surface dwellers who don't burrow too deep their optimal feeders around room temperature and they're well-suited to converting organic waste into usable fertilizer now your worms might be vermin but they need a comfortable space to live and work some bedding material either shredded paper or cardboard some moisture and of course food namely your leftovers slightly decomposed table scraps the worms break down food waste and other organic matter into castings a fancy synonym for worm poop their excrement is absolutely teeming with microbes which continue the decomposition process making all those once wasted nutrients available again as fertilizer the timeline for the whole process varies depending on the quantity of worms the temperature and how much waste is added to the bin and there's another timeline to consider in a healthy worm bin habitat worm reproduction will occur when the wiggler's become sexually mature indicated by an elongation of the segments into a bulbous structure three-month-old wigglers can produce two to three semi translucent yellow worm cocoons a week you thought only moths and butterflies come out of cocoons well we can't all be majestic it takes around eleven weeks for new babies to hatch when your bin seems to be full of living vermicelli noodles it's time to share the bounty with your friends and start a vermicompost Club or keep those worms to yourself and start a business Verma composting isn't confined only to small worm bins it's an emerging entrepreneurial enterprise large scale facilities convert bulk organic waste and even manure into rich black castings called black gold its value as a soil additive is unparalleled and it can help plants resist harmful pathogens the lack of available land in urban environments coupled with growing interest in smaller scale farming means there's a market for vermicompost a many communities use composting as part of zero waste strategies and they can sell their worm-eaten table scraps to local farms hungry for rich fertilizer so instead of wasting money dumping wasted food in landfills we can remake waste into an asset putting it back into our food system to make it more sustainable all with the help of the humble worm the tiny organism that can help us change the way we look at foods place in our lives and our place in the world as long as we give the little guy a place at our table well not an actual seat at the table a bin in the shed is fine you