Large Scale Vermicycling Requires Large Scale Vermiculture
The plan counts on public participation: Distributed Vermiculture
Foolproof Worm Hatcheries:
Foolproof Standard Hatcheries are one of the most important keys to this project, certainly from
the worm's point of view. The initial
worms we put into the hatchery got removed from their happy home, and they need to be placed into
near-ideal conditions, with more than enough food for the first several months. These adult worms lay cocoons,
and after enough months pass, the population is booming, with a writhing mass of young worms,
some of which are of breeding age, with the rest right behind.
We'll check on them at monthly intervals, feed them and intervene if required.
The key idea is that otherwise, we just set the bins up and then they just sit there. The host prepares the
bedding, provides a warm room and monthly access for our technician;
other than that they just leave it alone. A garage or unheated basement would be OK, but a normal
indoor temperature is ideal. After the correct period of time passes,
the bin gets completely emptied out, castings and worms and unfinished compost are separated and
go to new homes.
Hatcheries can be returned to duty as either a new hatchery or as a home-use vermicomposting bin.
Either way, the deal is that we get to take, say, 75% of the worms for their new life in beds
optimized for chowing down maximum amounts of a uniform food waste (very similar to what they
hatched on). We also split the castings, another percentage to be determined. As we grow,
we may be able to let our lovely subscribers and hatchery hosts keep all the castings.
To get this project rolling, we just need to
set up a bunch of bins as identically as possible,
with full documentation of exactly what went in, and with
known feeding weights, a decent record of the temperature history over the storage period of
from 3 to 4 months. Just that and a hundred other things, lol. :-)
When these hatcheries are ready, we're also going to need to know how to set up standard
Vermicycling Beds (or stacks of beds, as I envision it) and of course, we are going to need to have people
standing ready to use their homes and garages for ongoing Vermicycling operations.
Well then there's a lot to figure out. Eventually this page will have all the answers that have
emerged, but right now we don't even have a specification for a standard worm bin. (For that matter,
there is no 'we' yet, actually. It's just 'me' at this point. But worm keepers are good people, and
I think I can get at least a small 'we' going - and take it from there.)
Centralized Worm Food Production, Distributed Vermiculture Operations
This enterprise will have at least one central facility for worm food production.
There would likely also be limited numbers of vermicycling beds co-located there. But
it is not clear that a municipal waste-fed vermicycling facility operating alone would be able to
generate the revenue needed to support the overhead of maintaining the large area of worm beds
you would have to employ.
That's where the Distributed nature of the plan came from (among other reasons).
So we can vermicompost to the extent that it's affordable in terms of the cost of renting the space.
But
we're depending on most of those square feet to be elsewhere, in the homes of Professional
Vermicyclers.
To support the collection of food waste and conversion into worm food, there will need to be at least
one central facility. All food waste would remain in closed containers and be pumped from location to
location as required. The expectation is that if the facility stinks, you're doing something wrong.
The key is to always have a home for all the waste you have on site
(set up more hatcheries), and to be able to turn off or at least slow down the inflow of food waste
if you get overwhelmed. There should be no effluent from this facility: the worms can handle most anything
short of hazardous waste.
That analysis of a large centralized vermicycling operation needs to be done, but the initial view here is
that ultimately it would
be best if our subscribers turned into highly productive Vermicomposters. In fact, at a certain point,
growth in the overall system could likely be accommodated even with limited growth of the central facility,
by achieving dense enough participation: plenty of Professional Vermicyclers. There is also the prospect
of creating satellite worm food plants, set up in small commercial
spaces, run by neighborhood organizations or wormy co-ops.
In either case, perhaps we can envision little electric cars, collecting food waste
and delivering supplies and castings and tea to the members; nice. Mr Kulongowski might be able to help.
The existing waste haulers need to have their interests met as well, so maybe the big trucks are still used.
Some personal notes
Let me be clear (also see my disclaimer on the Vision page): My goal here is to divert many hundreds of tons
of food waste into Vermicycling beds. I'm not in this to find the perfect money-making angle. I figure
that the original Wormgineer ought to do well in this new emerging industry. How exactly that happens
is unknown and I'll worry about it later. You'll see a modest store with modest products emerge here, for now.
Maybe later I'll step up the commercial side of my involvement with worms, but for the forseeable future,
my goal is a focused one:
Ten thousand tons a year diverted from waste to humus via worms.
In the present context, I'm not going to hesitate to suggest that maybe this whole thing could be done as a co-op. I am
totally open to that idea. Well, open to it with the understanding that I am not comfortable with that
particular organizational approach. I see it as "fraught with peril". Likewise, I'm not going to worry about
satellite operations "cutting into my action".
You may be projecting me as the principal in some to-be-formed company
that does all this, and that I intend to make my fortune off of this idea. Please understand that I do
not project myself in that role. I'm an inventor, and I've learned that some ideas are not well served by
being selfish. I see a new
emerging industry and I'm getting in on it with perfect timing for what I want to do.
Plus, anyone can call themselves an Inventor, and any level of success
will enhance my own claim to be one, and that has high value to me.
My angle on this action: spur a sector into explosive growth, grab a slice of the pie
A cap-and-trade system for CO2 is on
the horizon as I write, so it is reasonable to assume that the activity of sequestering carbon that would
otherwise rot and spew methane - and not just sequestering it but turning it into Humus and Tilth - is going to
be a source of income. It simply seems clear to me that this is an emerging industry. You betcha I'll have
some inventions to sell to this market. But that's not what this website is all about. The priority is
to grow the industry of Vermicycling.
Processing Municipal food waste can certainly be expected to be on the list of revenue producing activities.
We really ought to get a bonus for turning the carbon into its ideal form!
{On another note: Just as soon as I get all the pages written, or at least started, for this website, I'll be participating in
as many worm forums as I can find, and of course I'll be hosting my own forums. Anything and everything you
read on this site is a valid topic on my forums. I'm looking for corrections and verification and suggestions
for improvement on every aspect. Especially corrections: Engineers should not be spreading mis-information!
I don't have all the answers, but I am convinced that a group of worm-keepers can make
something like what I propose happen. The first thing I am interested in resolving is the exact set-up of
a worm hatchery.}
Hatching Worms
I'm new at worm-keeping. I am not an expert yet (I just play at being one on the internet). But, hey this isn't
rocket science (and btw I can do some rocket science :-) ), this is Red Wiggler territory and by all accounts
they are dependable critters. In my opinion and judgement, there is no reason we cannot invent foolproof
worm hatcheries.
So here's what I've got so far:
The primary function of a worm hatchery (within this plan) is to start it with just enough worms to insure a
very high population at the end of the designated hatchery period (3-4 months). In other words,
multiply the quantity of worms as much as possible.
The basic idea is to give them ideal conditions, put them in a deep bin so they have plenty of room to grow and
have extra bedding, provide good ventilation, and then leave them alone except for monthly
check-ups. I'm thinking that you would feed them heavily after the first and second months (at check-up time),
and harvest as soon as three months. One alternative is to put a ball of food in a net and put that where the
food usually goes, at the three-month check-up, and then some weeks later pull the net out, harvesting a ball
of worms.
But what do I know? I'm a beginner at this. But there is enough good information on the web that it's worth a
shot.
Yes We Can, right?
I am sure that
controlling the total moisture content is going to be critical in delivering a foolproof design.
I am assuming that we use a plastic tote and that some extra measures should be taken to ventilate the interior.
I envision a design where the customer gets most of the stuff at their local ACE / TrueValue / Home Depot / Lowes /
Paar / (Other?) hardware store. They grab a plastic tote
(one on our list of approved bins for this program) and some PVC
pipe and fittings. We should be able to avoid using cement (glue) and just dry fit something together.
They get the bin and pipe fittings together - CHEAP! - and make up the bedding from newspaper. They either weigh the
dry newpaper or they count the sheets (or both) and prepare the specified amount. They put the ventilation system
together and wait for the worm tech. Oh, and they need to set some water out in a bucket for 24 hours to get
rid of the chlorine.
Our trained Worm Technician shows up with a kit, worm food and worms.
The bedding is checked and if we're going to
include anything else in the bedding, we weigh and record it.
The vast majority of bins will use only newspaper.
The tech measures the right amount of water and food, and sets up the layers
according to the standard. I'm thinking you first put down a thick layer of
wet bedding, then food, then the mixed contents of the kit, then bedding, then the worms, then lots and lots
more bedding.
The bedding goes in moist, but the total volume of water added is measured out
according to the standard, and only
that amount is used. This bin will not have drainage holes, or even a drainage area in the bottom (pottery shards
or styrofoam peanuts, etc.), to keep it simple and sealed. So we need to nail down the total amount of water added
to the bedding. We may end up with only damp bedding on top, when initially set up, but we do not want to drown
our worms if they are working the bottom of the bin.
Ventilating with the plastic pipe allows us to otherwise have a sealed-up bin. This is to make sure we don't make
a mess for our host to clean up. Just drill (or punch?) some
standardized holes in the sides for the ventilation system and put it together. Stuff a little aquarium filter floss
(this kind of thing would come with worm hatchery kits) into the pipe and you have a fruit-fly-proof worm bin that
is also well ventilated. The worms are wet but not drowning, they have all the food they could want, newspaper alone
makes good bedding for this setup, you are good to go.
Snap the lid on, hold it on with tape, put the bin somewhere in a heated space and leave it alone.
We might even require that only
certified Worm Techs are allowed to break the seal - insuring the quality of our process all the way
through the cycle.
The worm tech checks and feeds monthly, and then
when the time comes, your friend the worm tech shows up and the bin gets dumped out.
Everything gets separated and
the hatchery sponsor gets a pile of castings and, if they want, a population of worms.
They can take their share and put them back into the
same worm hatchery, but it can be converted into a daily-use Vermicomposter bin. There would be no
physical change, you would simply set it up with new bedding, throw a starter kit in, and feed it regularly
with daily food waste.
Such a converted bin could optionally be fed our homogenized worm food on an ongoing basis.
Put those Red Wigglers to work!
High-Volume Vermicycling (Vermicomposting) of Municipal Food Waste
The worms we harvest from hatcheries will be rushed to their new home, which will be less of a worm bin
and more of a worm bed: No deeper than necessary, just jam-packed with worms, being fed all the worm food
they can handle. Operations would focus on processing as much food as possible - "Vermicycling". This would
seem to differ from an operation which is focused on raising worms - "Vermiculture" and from an operation
focused on producing castings: "Vermicomposting".
These Vermicycling Beds would produce castings in large quantities. Apparently, worms don't mind living in
high concentrations of castings (they're like, what? Impervious or something?) just as long as they
have food and don't dry out or drown. That should provide some operational flexibility.
There might be a need
to employ some 'finishing beds' where the worms are forced to go from one end to the other of a bed to finish
off the last bit of uncomposted matter, producing very pure castings. But this plan is about processing food
waste, and processing castings is not our primary function, so maybe
that's a business opportunity for someone else.
Growth and a business model for Distributed Vermicycling
If the primary function of this plan is to provide a means of diverting some of the stream of waste food into
vermicompost - and it is! - then we have to question the use of industrial-sized worm beds in large spaces
(empty grocery stores, strip mall spaces, industrial properties, etc.).
The collection of food waste and the hatching
of worms is distributed, that is to say: the plan depends on public buy-in to a large extent already.
So why
shouldn't the actual vermicycling be distributed as well? And so it is in this plan: The only part that
isn't preferred to be done on a distributed basis is the conversion of food waste into
"standard" worm food. That needs to be done centrally in order to have foolproof wormbins.
It will be easy on the worms for a Hatchery Host to become a Professional Vermicycler: the baby worms stay under the
same roof for their adult lives, moving from hatchery to high density cycling bed.
Green Jobs Here!
Once this gets going, if the economics work out - and there is a lot of work to be done on the creation
of a solid business model for this plan, and for an analysis of the integration of it into current economic
realities and coming to terms with existing stakeholders - this plan creates the new jobs of Worm Technician
and Professional Vermicycler.
Without a doubt, being able to define terms and even make up a few words of my own is a very fun part of this
venture so far. Here I go again:
- Worm Technician
- A person who has the job of setting up, checking on, feeding, harvesting and
trouble-shooting worm bins, especially hatcheries.
- Professional Vermicycler
- A person who processes municipal food waste in the form of worm food using their own
worm-keeping facilities and equipment; a person certified as knowledgable in all aspects of Vermiculture
and Vermicomposting, with a special interest in Vermicycling.
Real-world market forces will decide how extensive Vermicycling can become, and it will highly influence
the proportion of worm food going to Professional Vermicomposters compared to the central facility.
The plan calls for, ideally, the central facility to maintain as few worm beds as possible. Growth of
the enterprise is ideally in terms of volume of waste food processed into worm food. Growth in the
area of worm beds is highly preferred to be realized by private contractors on a distributed basis.
In other words, we will need to constantly recruit, train and certify a constantly growing
crew of Professional Vermicyclers.
We are not going to run out of topics on the forums for a while.
