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

Was this post useful?  Please leave a comment.

Posted under compost, food, money saving ideas, waste

Research by WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) shows that in the UK we are throwing away one third of the food we buy, most of which could have been eaten. In effect, for every three bags of shopping we bring home, we put one straight into the bin.

According to WRAP, 6.7 million tonnes of wasted food goes to landfill in the UK every year, at a total cost of over £8 billion – that’s equal to £420 per year for the average family!

Sending food to landfill is not only wasteful and expensive,  but also produces emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas which, molecule for molecule, traps 25 times more of the sun’s heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. When bacteria break down organic matter in the absence of oxygen they produce methane, so as waste is compressed in landfill sites the organic materials decompose anaerobically, producing methane gas.

In 2007 methane accounted for 8 per cent of the UK’s total CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions, and over 40% of this came from landfill sites. More than a third of the waste collected from UK homes is organic kitchen or garden waste.

So what are the alternatives?

Obviously we need to waste much less in the first place. Love Food Hate Waste has lots of ideas and advice on buying and using food more efficiently.

A few councils have now introduced Green Waste Recycling Schemes which provide a kerbside collection for garden waste and uncooked food waste such as vegetable peelings and tea bags. The materials are then processed into compost. This is an excellent solution, although you can’t dispose of any leftover meat, fish or cooked food waste this way.

If you have a garden, home composting is a good solution. This is really very easy  – you don’t have to be an expert gardener. Garden waste and uncooked kitchen waste such as vegetable peelings, egg shells, tea bags and coffee grounds are ideal ingredients for making compost. With not much effort you could soon be producing your own home-made compost which will improve your soil and reduce the need for artificial fertilizers. It’s an easy, cheap and practical way to manage your waste and improve your garden too. For more information, see my page on composting.  You can find details of which local councils supply reduced priced home composting bins at recyclenow.  Or see the turning2green shop for a selection of composting bins.

The main problem in home composting of kitchen waste is how to deal with meat and fish, dairy products and leftover cooked food. If you mix this waste in with your ordinary compost it will smell and attract flies and rats, so it needs to be composted in a different way. There are several systems for doing this:

Bokashi bins

This is a two step system in which the waste is firstly fermented in airtight bins and then composted, so it works along with a normal composting system, turning leftover meat, fish, bread, etc into nutrient rich compost without creating smells or attracting  flies or vermin.  As the materials are collected they are sprinkled with a bran based material, Bokashi, which contains a culture of friendly micro organisms.  When the Bokashi bin is full it is closed up and left for two weeks to ferment. Generally two containers are used so one can be left fermenting while the other is being filled. After fermentation the waste needs to be added to an ordinary compost bin or wormery or buried in the garden to complete the composting process.  There is more information on using this system on my Bokashi page.

Bokashi bins are available from the recycle works or through the turning2green shop.

Wormeries

Worms are very effective and hygienic composters, and a wormery will compost most types of leftover food scraps, shredded newspapers, the contents of your vacuum cleaner, or garden weeds, producing especially rich compost and concentrated liquid fertiliser. There are various designs available – the easiest to use have several layers of trays which the worms move up through leaving compost ready for use in the lower trays (See a selection of wormeries at the turning2green shop. The Recycle Works sell wooden worm bins.

These are really good efficient systems, although the idea of dealing with worms doesn’t appeal to everyone. For more information see my page on Worm composting.

Food waste digesters

These will dispose of all food waste, cooked or uncooked, including meat, fish, bones, dairy products, peelings and fruit . There are two types of digestor, the Green Cone and the Green Johanna, and both use natural processes to break the food down without producing methane.

Green Cone – this small food digester needs to be installed in a sunny part of the garden as it uses solar heat to break down food waste into water, carbon dioxide, and just a small residue of solids. It isn’t suitable for garden waste, and doesn’t produce any compost. It’s easy to set up, very simple to use, and it will dispose of most food waste.  The Green Cone is available through the turning2green shop or from mygreenerhome.co.uk . For more information see their Green Cone Food-Waste Digester FAQs.

Green Johanna. This is a more expensive option, but is a very simple, easy to use compost bin which will dispose of all waste food and garden waste too, and the unit is completely rodent proof. It needs to be installed in a shady part of the garden and is designed to be filled with two parts food waste mixed with one third garden waste, working by a ‘hot composting’ method which produces good rich compost. Available from mygreenerhome.co.uk – see also their page of Green Johanna FAQs.

Green Cone.com has a search facility to check if your local council is offering either the Green Cone or Green Johanna at subsidised prices.

To help decide which would be most appropriate for you, see Which Food Waste Digester, Green Cone or Green Johanna at YouTube.

Posted under compost, food, waste