Composting Workshop at Sunset Beach with Waikiki Worm
Mindy Jaffe from Waikiki Worm taught 2 workshops at Sunset Beach Elementary School about composting with WORMS!
This is a new thing in Hawaii using a special Composting Worm called Perioyx Excavatus.
Waikiki Worm's Mission is
• To divert waste from Oahu's landfill by promoting on-site vermicomposting
• To restore nutrients to Hawaii's soil and reduce pollution
• To encourage "reduce, reuse, and recycle" as an adventure in learning, enterprise, and another great pleasure of island life.
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Let worms eat your garbage...
There is a better way to manage your household kitchen waste than flushing it into the sewer system, or having it tranported to burn up at H-Power or stink up the neighborhood at the Waimanalo Gulch landfill.
By practicing VERMICOMPOSTING, you can harness the power of earthworms to decompose food scraps, newspaper, cardboard, and yes... even junk mail!
In exchange for your garbage, your worms will produce vermicast (worm poop), a dark, nutrient-rich soil amendment that can be used in your garden, on your houseplants, landscaping or lawn. In this way, essential plant nutrients are recycled back to the soil as nature intended. Your organic waste becomes a valuable resource.
Composting worms are "litter" worms. In their natural habitat, they make their living eating decaying organic material on the surface and just below the surface of the soil. Unlike the tillers, earthworkers such as garden worms or nightcrawlers, compost worms do not burrow into the soil and make tunnels.
Also unlike the more solitary earthworms, compost worms live in dense colonies, making them ideal habitats for a dark, cozy worm bin. Their demands are few: they need only air, water, and decaying organic material to thrive. Your kitchen scraps and shredded newspaper will suit them just fine.
Mindy shared so many interesting things about these special worms. She told us about other schools around the country, where they recycle most all of their carbon based wastes using WORMS, and even have a valuable product, the vermicast, to sell at the end of the process.
Mahalo Mindy for all your inspiration!
Check out the pictures of the Teacher Workshop here:
(Notice how everyone is smiling and loving their WORMS.) Bravo Mindy!
We all have our own bins of worms to feed for the next 3 months. We are then going to share our new worms for a BIG WORM BIN for the school.
So much THANKS to Kim Johnson of the Kokua Foundation for sponsering this exciting workshop, and we are looking forward to sharing more information as we get more experience.
Check here:
for more information about Waikiki Worms