turning2green.co.uk money-saving ideas that help the environment too

DIY worm bins can be made of timber or from recycled containers such as plastic tubs or boxes, dustbins or water butts – here are just a couple of simple ideas to give you inspiration.  (See my page on Worm Composting for more details of how to feed and take care of the worms.)

Single unit method

For this you will need a plastic dustbin (or a wooden or plastic box with a lid) to keep the worms in and the rain and flies out.  Drill drainage holes around the base about 5cm up and about 25cm apart. Then drill some small holes 5cm down from the top of the bin as air holes. Stand the bin above a tray to collect the liquid plant food which leaches out as the compost matures.  A plastic drainage tap (use a water butt or home brewing tap) can be fitted close to the base of the bin as an alternative to drilling holes – this will allow you to easily draw off the rich liquid plant food formed as the compost matures.

Put a 10cm layer of gravel or sand in the bottom, then cover with a layer of fibrous matting or a circle of wood or plastic with holes drilled through for drainage. Add a 7-10cm layer of moist bedding material, such as leaf mould, well rotted compost, or moist shredded paper, and the bin is now ready for the worms. Tiger worms or brandlings can be harvested from an existing worm bin, a manure heap, or a mature compost heap, or they can be purchased from fishing tackle shops, ebay, or worm bin suppliers such as The Recycle Works.

After adding the worms, place a few handfuls of food in the bin and cover it with a moist newspaper or cardboard. Put on the lid and leave undisturbed for a week to allow the worms to settle in. Gradually build up the food supply as the population of worms increases.

Stacking system

This system uses three 8-10 gallon plastic stacking storage boxes – the sort often sold for storing toys. They should be opaque, not see-through, and should stack quite tightly inside each other. You will only need one lid. More layers can be added later if needed.

Drill about twenty evenly spaced 1/4 inch holes in the bottom of two of the boxes. These will provide drainage and allow the worms to crawl up through the compost from box to box so you can harvest the castings.

Using a 1/16 inch bit, drill ventilation holes about an inch apart near the top edge on each side of the two boxes, and drill about 30 small holes in the top of the lid.

The bottom box doesn’t need any holes as it will be used for drainage and to catch any materials or worms falling down through the holes. To begin with you will just need to use this box, one of the boxes with the holes, and the lid.

Sit one of the boxes with holes inside the bottom box. Place a 3-4 inch layer of bedding material in the top box. This needs to be moist but not soggy. Use moist newspaper or shredded paper fluffed up and if possible add some leaf litter or well rotted compost, plus a little garden soil to provide grit for the worms.

Then add your worms to the bedding, and put some moist cardboard over the bedding – the worms will gradually eat the cardboard, and it will help to prevent fruit flies. Put on the lid and place the worm bin out of direct sun in a well-ventilated area such as a utility room, shed, garage, or balcony, or under the kitchen sink. This system is not rain-proof so is not suitable to sit outside.

Feed the worms just a little at first, placing the food under the cardboard. As they multiply, you can slowly increase the food supply. Harvest any liquid that drains into the bottom box – this ‘worm tea’ is a good liquid fertilizer when diluted with water.

When the first box is full, the next box is added on top. Place new bedding material in the second box and sit it directly onto the surface of the compost in the first box. Bury some food scraps in the bedding of the second box, cover with moist cardboard and put on the lid. The worms will migrate up through the holes to the fresh material and gradually, over one to two months, will leave behind almost worm-free vermicompost in the bottom box ready to be harvested. (You can rescue any worms that might remain, or just put them into your garden with the compost).

See also Worm composting; Worm compost troubleshooting

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Posted under compost, global warming

Plastics are everywhere around us – in our homes, our vehicles, our computers, as packaging – replacing more traditional materials such as wood, metal, glass, leather, paper and rubber because they are lighter, stronger, more durable and corrosion resistant, and often cheaper.

But that durability means that most plastics do not biodegrade, so almost all the plastic ever produced is still here somewhere on the planet in one form or another, and will remain here for centuries to come, possibly up to 1000 years – nobody knows for certain yet.

Total global production of plastics was just 5 million tonnes per year in 1950, but had risen to 245 million tonnes by 2006. In the UK we now use about 5 million tonnes a year, over one third of this for packaging. Only a small proportion is reclaimed or recycled, and an extraordinary amount of plastic waste now occupies landfill space worldwide.

In addition it’s estimated that 5% of all the plastic produced since the 1950’s is now in the world’s oceans, comprising 90% of all floating marine litter – the United Nations Environment Program estimated in 2006 that on average every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.

About 20% of this comes directly from shipping, mostly from containers lost overboard. Some is intentionally fly-tipped. The rest comes from the land, swept by tides, wind, rain and floods into streams and rivers and out to sea. 70% eventually sinks to the ocean floor. The rest floats, much of it ending up in oceanic gyres as massive islands of waste such as ‘the Great Pacific Garbage Patch’. It may eventually be deposited as litter on a beach, or could float around for decades before breaking down into smaller particles and becoming absorbed into the food chain or sinking and becoming part of the ocean floor sediment.

Quite rightly, much attention has been focused on the dangers of plastic litter to seabirds, whales, dolphins, turtles, seals and other marine life. It’s thought to cause the deaths of over a million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals each year, but researchers are now warning that the risk of hidden contamination could be even more serious.

Unlike biological materials, plastic doesn’t decompose. Instead, it photodegrades when exposed to sunlight, fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces without chemically breaking down. In large areas of ocean tiny plastic bits, often called ‘mermaid tears’, have been found to outweigh the plankton by a factor of six to one or more.

But, no matter how small they become, these plastic bits never become digestible by any living creature.  In addition they contain additives such as pigments and plasticizers, known to be endocrine disruptors, plus toxic metals such as cadmium and lead. Recent research by the University of Plymouth has shown that the particles also attract toxic chemicals from the surrounding seawater and concentrate them on the surface of the plastic, acting as ‘magnets’ for poisons in the oceans.

These small poisonous particles, found throughout the oceans and mixed with the sand on beaches, are now threatening the entire food chain. The toxins they contain are known to be a threat to human health. In the water the particles are mixed in with and resemble the plankton, and are being eaten by filter feeders, which are then consumed by large creatures. The process of bio-accumulation has the potential to further increase the concentrations of toxins as they pass along the food chain and into our human diets.

More information:

• BBC News Report ‘Warning on plastic’s toxic threat’
• Plastic in the environment
• The ‘great pacific garbage patch’ (video)
• Synthetic sea – plastic in the open ocean (video)
• Message in the waves – endocrine disruptors (video)
• Waste Watch information sheet on Plastics
• Greenpeace report on hormone disruption and PVC plastic
• Modbury, Devon – plastic facts page

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Posted under cause for concern, waste

A major report just released concludes that “climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”. The report, compiled by researchers at The Lancet medical journal and the Institute for Global Health at University College, London, says that  “Even the most conservative estimates are profoundly disturbing and demand action”.

Lead author, Professor Anthony Costello, says “The big message of this report is that climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation. The impacts will be felt not just in the UK, but all around the world – and not just in some distant future, but in our lifetimes and those of our children.”

The report goes on to say that current evidence suggests the forecasts by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in 2007 may be too conservative. Positive feedback loops and possible ‘tipping points‘ in the climate system could mean that the target of limiting future global warming to 2°C is unlikely to be achieved. Global temperature rises above the ’safe’ threshold of 2°C may lead to abrupt, severe and irreversible changes in climate, and the worst case scenario of a 5-6°C rise would be catastrophic, they say.

The direct and indirect effects of global warming that will have a major impact on human health include changing patterns of infection and insect-borne disease, heat waves, water shortages, malnutrition, large scale migration and inadequate living conditions, as well as extreme weather events such as hurricanes. The poorest people in the world, who have contributed least to carbon emissions, will be worst affected.

Professor Hugh Montgomery, one of the report’s authors, warns that the impact of heatwaves, flooding and global food shortages will be felt in Britain too “This is an immediate danger. It is going to affect you and it will certainly affect your children. While there is the injustice that the poorest will be worst affected, you will be affected too”.

The report says “In terms of our well-being, in terms of our survival over the next 100 years, it is absolutely the top political issue that we should be talking about”. The authors call for international institutions and governments to do more to address the problem, with an accelerated drive against world poverty and new technological approaches to preserve food and water supplies and prevent disease.

They also ask for a “stronger engagement by all individuals in the social and political aspects of moving to low-carbon living”.

To read the report go to http://press.thelancet.com/climatechangefinal.pdf

Posted under cause for concern, global warming