Composting or Wormery or Both????

 
Composting in schools:
Any school could, and perhaps should, practise composting on site. There is, among some people, a certain but usually exaggerated fear of problems with rodents. These problems should not arise if the composting system is managed properly.
For any school with its own garden, making compost is a great boon in providing high-quality fertiliser and soil improvement from what are otherwise treated as waste materials. The children's and teachers' fruit peels, tea bags, ends of sandwiches etc. can all be converted into a valuable compost. This will also help the school's environmental performance, and can reduce waste costs.
A lot of schools use one or more plastic compost bins, which often become clogged up with an excess of soft, wet fruit and other food. These tall, narrow bins are not very suitable for this type of material as it compacts and becomes anaerobic very easily, hindering the composting process.
Composting requires a mix of soft moist "green" materials (such as fruit peelings and other food and canteen waste, and also grass cuttings) and drier, crisper "brown" materials (such as autumn leaves, straw, hay, sawdust, shredded paper, and cardboard) to work effectively. This requires a level of know-how and diligence within the school staff or Green Schools committee that may be difficult to maintain.

A much easier and more satisfactory solution for most schools would be a wormery such as the one pictured. This is a simple wooden box, filled with moist bedding material similar to the "brown" materials mentioned above, and stocked with composting worms, also known as tiger worms. These tiger worms are easy to acquire - they can be bought, or even found naturally in a pile of compost or animal manure. They eat steady amounts of soft material such as fruit peelings, tea and coffee grounds, and will also eat their bedding, turning it all into compost.

The advantages of a wormery include:
Easy and effective management of school's food waste
Can be kept in a shed or outdoors in a sheltered spot
Can easily be sheathed with wire mesh as extra precaution against rodents - though this should not be necessary.
Produces a very high-quality compost
Great educational and nature awareness tool for children. A compost bin can be a "black hole" for dumping waste, while a wormery raises awareness of the ecology and importance of a usually unseen little creature.

Of course, composting is great but reducing food waste is more important. A glimpse into the typical school's compost or waste bin reveals whole uneaten apples, oranges, bananas and sandwiches that have been discarded. The Stop Food Waste campaign www.stopfoodwaste.ie helps children and adults to become aware of food waste and how to reduce it, saving themselves money while helping the environment.
The Stop Food Waste website also offers lots of valuable information on composting, for example the excellent "Composting - A Household Guide" booklet which can be downloaded at
http://stopfoodwaste.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-Compost-Booklet-Web-Version.pdf
Paper copies of this are also available by contacting Stop Food Waste.

For school visits on food waste and composting, including information on wormeries, contact Donal O' Leary at donal@wastedown.com or 087 7409304.

Article and Images by Donal.