WORMS: Nature’s best recyclers

Leftover food scraps, paper products, and other organic wastes need not be additional worries to our household. These can best be placed in a worm farm, one of the best alternatives to help get rid of our daily garbage.

Australian Ambassador John Buckley, who recently presented a worm farm to Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez in Makati City, explained that worm farms help recycle garbage turning it into a product that will restore and revive the land and in turn fertilize gardens and trees.

Buckley who maintains a worm farm in his Makati City garden, says that worms can eat types of food scraps with the exception of meat and dairy products which attract flies. Worms can consume paper, cardboard and even materials from vacuum cleaner bags, converting them into compost castings. These castings can in turn be used as fertilizers for all types of plants as they are rich in nitrogen, phosphorous, calcium and potassium with a neutral pH level.

The worms presented by Buckley were locally-bred African Night Crawler earthworms from Barangay Sun Valley in Parañaque, which can eat up to half their own weight in organic waste each day. The worm bins come from a multi-award winning Australian company, Reln Plastic Pty. Ltd. which manufactures "Can of Worms" and "Wriggly Wranch." These worm farms were first made available in Australia in 1993. The products have been used by over 100,000 home worm farmers or vermicomposters worldwide.

Reln’s Can-O-Worms is a multi-level cylinder that harnesses the composting power of earthworms, nature’s foremost recyclers, in the disposal of organic waste. These stacking vermicomposting system offer people a smart and simple way to retrieve the finished vermicompost.

Made from recycled plastic, the fully assembled Can-O-Worms units is 510 mm in diameter and 725 mm in height. It consist of a collector tray with legs and tap, three working trays and lid. With 1,000 to 2,000 composting worms in the first working tray, organic waste is added incrementally. The worms eat the waste, turning it into castings. As each tray is filled with organic waste, the next working tray is added, the worms moving through the sieve-like base of the trays to the new food above. By the time the last tray has been added, the first tray will be full of nutrient rich odorless worm casting that can be removed and used on gardens.

Due to its award winning design, the Can-O-Worms requires no shoveling , sorting or tedious separation of worms, unlike other composting systems. The circular working trays maintain the critical surface are required for effective vermiculture. The legs bring the working trays to an accessible height for lifting when ready to harvest.

Relatively small and unobtrusive, the closed, odorless, hygienic Can-O-Worms system can be situated on verandahs or in gardens, making composting available to almost any household. The Can-O-Worms is made from recycled materials, even its packaging can be recycled and used as worm food. A fully-operational Can-O-Worms can house up to 20,000 composting worms, capable of eating up to five kilograms of organic waste daily producing useful nutrient rich natural fertilizer.

Worm farming is popular in Australia as it is the best way to compost domestic garbage. Worms like to live in dark moist environments, living well bedded in shredded newspaper, straw, leaves, compost or coir. Starting a worm farm is very simple, no special training is required and costs are minimal–all you need to get started is a worm bin, bedding, worms and your organic waste. But the resulting vermicompost or worm casting are more valuable to farmers, landscapers and home gardeners than raw manure. Vermicompost from worm farms provide stable organic material which conserve moisture, improves soil conditions in various ways and enhances the growth and yields of most plants.