Worms
Things started well on day one of the Waste Eco Challenge. I’d made it to almost 06:45am without throwing anything out and now with a teabag balanced dripping on the end of a knife I was faced with my first real hurdle. No non-recyclable household waste was the first and only rule of the challenge. Was I about to break it 15 minutes past the starting line? This was going to be harder than I’d thought.
In fact I shouldn’t have panicked, just been a bit more prepared. A quick search of the Google-net later and I’ve ordered my own wormery. Southwark council subsidise these worm farms and each one of the wriggly little guys will munch its way through their own body-weight in vegetation everyday, tea-bags and all. The free kilogram of worms that is provided should easily be enough to turn all of our household food waste into fertiliser and prevent it producing methane as it rots underground on a landfill site. In the absence of a garden my new all-you-can-eat worm restaurant will find a spot next to the bins in the front yard.
This invertebrate based success will probably halve the contents of our fortnightly collection but worms don’t eat plastic and that is what is left in the bin. There is spectrum of food wrapping staring back at me from the gloom under the pedal lid. In fact if plastic could talk it would be laughing in my face “You’re never going to get rid of us mate, we’re in everything you buy.” Which is true. A cursory glance over our recent shopping basket revealed that we’d need to cut out two thirds of what we buy in order to remove it’s packaging. It’s that or unwrap it at the till and hand it back to a puzzled looking checkout girl. Not really practical with a raw chicken. One step at a time though and once the worms are in place it will be time to cut out the cling-film.
A worm farm complete with a voucher for worms costs £15 delivered or £10 if you collect. Information at www.southwark.gov.uk
