Waste

COMPOSTING and WORMY COMPOSTING

Organic kitchen scraps, such as vegetables and fruits and their peelings, coffee grounds, tea, egg shells, etc. and yard wastes, such as grass clippings, leaves and plant trimmings, make up almost a third of our garbage. Composting can keep all this out of our overloaded landfill sites and produce a finished product called humus that returns valuable nutrients to the soil.

Composting is a natural process where kitchen and yard wastes decompose into a dark, nutrient-rich, sweet-smelling soil conditioner.

Organic waste in landfill sites creates methane: one of the gases that contributes to the greenhouse effect. Methane is produced by organic waste decomposing without air (anaerobic condition). Landfill sites produce about 38 percent of the methane generated by Canadians. Composting can keep most of our organic waste out of landfills.

Composting is one way to help return fertility to the soil. According to the Worldwatch Institute, about 25 billion tonnes of topsoil are lost from croplands around the world each year. Nutrient-rich humus can be added to gardens, lawns and potted plants to help make up for this loss.

MAKING GARDEN COMPOST

The composting process requires i) organic material, ii) air, iii) moisture, iv) soil and v) container (or a hole in the ground). The organic material should consist of some kitchen waste and some garden waste. Do not add meat, fish, fats, oils or dairy products as they may attract animals. In addition, grass clippings treated with lawn chemicals, animal droppings, human waste and disposable diapers should never be put in a composter.

You don’t have to do much more than alternate layers of organic wastes and soil, keep them moist and turn the mixture frequently.

WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR HUMUS

Add it to your garden soil or prepare it for indoor use. To do this first put it through a strainer to produce a finer dirt. Then bake it in an old pan for 2 hours at 100 degrees C (200 degrees F) to kill weeds and insects. Package it up and give a gift of earth to a friend. It’s worth its weight in gold!

VERMICOMPOSTING: THE PERFECT ALTERNATIVE

A great opportunity to practise composting in a manageable, fun way: A worm box, little worms called red wigglers and kitchen and yard waste - that’s all you need. Many schools already have worm boxes in their classrooms and young people are happily feeding their hungry worms waste that would have gone to landfill.

People are often squeamish about worms, but the lowly earth worm is perhaps the most important animal in the soil. It makes more soil than any other creature, and its extensive network of tunnels helps air and water reach the roots of plants. This also helps to provide other beneficial soil creatures with air and water.

Vermicomposting is simply composting with worms. The best kind of earth worm to use is the red worm (the red wiggler). These worms are incredible garbage eaters. They tunnel through the earth eating their weight in kitchen waste every day so even a small bin of red worms will produce many kilograms of rich, sweet-smelling compost. Worms turn the soil by moving deep soil up to the surface and by dragging plant material underground, thus helping to bring humus into deep soil.

Red wigglers reproduce very quickly. It takes about three weeks for an egg to develop and as many as 20 little worms can be hatched from one worm egg. In three months they will start breeding... making more and more hungry worms!

SETTING UP A WORM BOX

All you need is a plastic bin with a tight fitting lid (about the size of a blue box) and a drainage tray. Drill a number of small holes (about 1 cm or 1/4") in the bottom and all around the bin and place the bin on the drainage tray. The worms require bedding: dried leaves, ground cardboard, peat moss, shredded paper or straw. The bedding can be mixed, but the important thing is to keep the bedding as moist as a very well squeezed sponge.

Now add the worms and start feeding them. Remember they are hungry and eager to devour your vegetable and fruit peels, coffee grounds, tea bags and egg shells. Don’t give them meat, fat or dairy products. Food waste should always be dug into the bedding and well covered. Put the lid on and place the bin in a sunny spot. Make sure air can circulate all around the bin.

WORMY WONDERS AT WORK

After about three months you will notice that the volume of materials has dropped substantially and the original bedding is no longer recognizable. It’s time to harvest your compost.

Move the contents of the bin to one side and add new bedding plus a helping of food waste to the other. Dampen it and replace the lid. The worms will gradually migrate to the fresh area in search of new food. After about a week, remove the lid under a bright light. (The worms are shy and light sensitive, so they will dive out of sight when the lid is removed. Scoop out the finished compost a few layers at a time and place it in a plastic bag until you are ready to use it.

NEW SOIL FOR YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS

The harvested compost is so rich that it would burn plants if used straight as potting soil, so mix it half and half with peat moss or soil. It can be added directly to soil in the garden.

What a useful gift! Put a bow on your specially packaged "home made" compost and deliver it to family and friends.

Let's Go Back to the Waste Fun Stuff

This document is also available for download in  .pdf format. For help with Adobe Acrobat go to the Virtual Classroom Tips page.

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