Wormery

Sep 07, 2011 18:42

Recently we had a letter through from the council. It contained some helpful things about exactly which bin and box and bag and day and whatever you should recycle. Indeed its a fold out colour chart ( Read more... )

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scatmania September 7 2011, 17:47:05 UTC
Follow the instructions carefully: we here on Earth have a wormery, and our first pack (herd? coven?) of worms got an infestation of parasitic species and all died: I'm sure there's nothing we can teach you about parasites, of course, with your beekeeping experience, but still...

Feed them VERY little until they get warmed up, over the first few months. And watch out for flies looking for smelly places to lay their eggs: they're the fuckers. Ruth's more emotionally-invested in the little squirmers than I, and probably has more and better advice to impart.

But good luck! And yeah, I think you're right about why this isn't done wide-scale.

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fleeblewidget September 8 2011, 08:20:58 UTC
Worms are hard. Or maybe I just don't have the knack. I'm pretty sure our second batch are dying out, and although I'm pretty sure I know what I did wrong with the first lot, this time I've done everything right - they just don't seem happy. To be honest, if I can't get it right this time I'm planning on freecycling the wormery.

I'm probably not the best person to give tips, is what I'm saying here. I guess the best tip I've found which didn't come with the instructions is to wrap food waste in newspaper in hot weather to keep the flies out. Oh, and if you've got one that accumulates 'worm tea' at the bottom, cover the tap with muslin or similar and then leave it switched to on - that way, you don't get a build-up of fluid which the worms sometimes fall into and drown. Also, if you have ants round-abouts, put the legs in containers of water or smear them with vaseline - otherwise the ants may get in and eat your worms eggs.

Huh. Turns out I do have some tips, after all.

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eskoala September 8 2011, 09:18:25 UTC
"To get it done, you either have to make people care [...] make it easier to comply than not[...] or punish people for getting it wrong"

Yup, and option 1 barely ever works, option 3 is good for companies but not always for individuals, option 2 good for both but hardest to achieve. This applies to *every* global-scale problem, whether it's deforestation, breeding, eating meat, recycling, whatever.

We recycle because it's been made very very easy to do so (chuck it all in a clear bag / food waste bin, deposit on drive on correct day) *and* because they collect recyclate twice as often as "normal" rubbish. What we do accumulate is glass, because that requires a special trip. It gets done eventually, of course, but I doubt the same would happen with the rest without the collections.

Our council have a communal compost for garden waste, which seems like a pretty good idea. Dunno if they are filtering anything but they are really strict about what can go in.

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