Comments on: Restaurant Food Waste Vermicomposting

By: Bentley

Bentley — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:16:21 +0000

Hi Ruth,
I would say that a small amount of meat/dairy etc would be ok – but probably not in the amounts that would almost certainly be found in a typical cafeteria waste stream. You would run the risk of creating some pretty foul conditions and potentially running the risk of attracting unwanted pests if the vermicomposting system was outdoors. I think the key would be education in a situation like this – if most of the meat/dairy/oily foods can be separated out (again, having a little shouldn’t be a problem) then you should be able to process the wastes via vermicomposting.

You might want to track down a copy of Binet Payne’s “The Worm Cafe: Mid-Scale Vermicomposting of Lunchroom Wastes” – this should be a helpful guide for your situation.

Hope this helps
8)

By: Ruth

Ruth — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:46:03 +0000

This site is exactly what I was looking for. I’m trying to start a composting program that uses not only uncooked vegetable and fruit peelings and cuttings, etc., but also post-cooked uneaten food. When I say food, I mean the kinds of things kids throw away from their school lunches. Is it possible to “vermiculture” left-overs? What about meat, lasagna, spaghetti sauce, hard boiled egg sandwiches–all those things that are left on the plate or in the lunch box to be thrown away. Can they be used for this?

Bentley, thanks for your web site. It is powerful.

By: Bentley

Bentley — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:32:12 +0000

Hi Yoshi,
The idea is to create a good composting worm habitat in the trench first (just as you would when setting up a worm bin) then inoculate with worms and/or cocoons. If set up properly, the environment inside the trench will be a LOT more appealing to these worms than the surrounding garden/lawn etc.

Winter in my area is a down time for the trenches. The worms seem to survive subzero temperatures quite easily in the trenches (adding some leaves or straw at the end of the season would really help) and are ready to go again once spring arrives. If you wanted to keep the trench active (assuming we are talking about during a cold winter) you’d likely need to mound up a lot of organic matter (eg manure) and add a thick layer of straw or fall leaves to help keep in the warmth.

By: yoshi

yoshi — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:06:05 +0000

I am curious about the worm trench method. Did you just let the worms loose into the trench? Don’t they wander off? What about the temperature in the winter?

By: Kami

Kami — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:35:35 +0000

I am not sure, but I think that organic farmers can use manure that did not come from organically raised animals. So, it is possible that use of composted veggies etc. even if they are not organic is acceptable in organic gardening. This is something that can be answered with a little research about what officially constitutes organic farming (I wish I could provide a link, but do not have one on hand).

On the other hand, I have been reading articles about farming in India where worms are providing waste disposal as well as castings for farms. If I am remembering correctly, part of what the worms do is aid in breaking down these harmful chemicals into their natural components. To find these articles, I use Google search ‘vermicompost’ and then click on news. There are some terrific articles available about vermicomposting.

By: Bentley

Bentley — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:29:08 +0000

Weird – not sure how I missed Craig’s comment there (considering I answered the one after it)! Thanks Lee for your great response, and for calling me a “grand site host”!
😆

Craig – that is a valid concern in theory, but there are some important things to take into consideration. Any pesticides left on the waste materials will likely be in relatively low concentrations to begin with (some crops are obviously much more of a issue than others), and the humic complexes in compost provide exceptional binding sites for these sorts of chemicals, thus immobilizing them. Worms themselves can also accumulate various nasties, such as heavy metals etc, so when it comes down to it, the actual amount of ‘poison’ that will end up in a crop grown in this compost is almost certainly going to be very negligible.

It is obviously important to consider all this if you have plans to market your vermicompost as ‘organic’ however – in my mind, unless the produce is ALL organic to start with (and what about the bedding materials as well?) you can’t really do so.

Anyway – just my 2 cents!
🙂

By: Lee

Lee — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:25:55 +0000

A quick note to Craig, above: I’ve been composting for about
30 years, in 4 longterm places. So far, I’ve seen no indications
that composting restaurant scraps (pretty much the same as
scraps from home, but in larger amounts) caused any poisoning
or problems. In fact, for composters out there, including our
grand site host himself, I recommend your local grocery store
as a source for more vegetable cuttings and throwaways. You
can end up with two or three huge Hefty bags of goodies every
day or so if you really want to. (I only go a few times a season
to get more “green” materials for my Kemper Compostumbler.)
And many many thanks for the compost-trench idea! I’ve got
a long barrow of leaves from my kind neighbors (who don’t want
to pay the city to haul them away), to which I add my winter
kitchen gleanings, plus three ground-type heaps & the tumbler
going during summers–and I love to wander out with a batch of
potato peels or old carrots and just drop ’em in the garden any-
place with one kick of my shovel. But the trench! I’ll be in
composter heaven! Picture me, out there with my Mantis tiller,
toodling along between rows, adding new trenches of goodies
whenever I get a minute. Oh, and picture my raccoons &
possums, digging it all right back up. Hmmm. Did you have this
problem?? (If I could post pictures, I’d add one of my not-quite-
pet raccoon, who comes when I call.)

By: Bentley

Bentley — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:41:36 +0000

You can if you want, but if they are composting worms they likely won’t stick around for long. Species used for composting are specialized for a rich, organic matter environment, such as that found in a compost heap or manure pile

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:42:11 +0000

Can’t you just throw worms in your garden?

By: Craig Cochran

Craig Cochran — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:12:02 +0000

I like the idea of worm composting on a large scale. But since we typically compost to make fertile soil for organic gardening, are we simply recycling the pesticides, herbicides, and other contaminants found in food from restaurants? Unless the restaurant food was organically grown, are we poisoning ourselves through the worm castings? I really would appreciate discussion on this subject since I have a garden spot with crummy soil, and I want to build it up.