Locals find wormhole in market
Sat 26 July 2008
Kim Lahey, Journalism
A Sunshine Coast worm farm has released a unique invention, the wheelie bin worm habitat, helping Australians recycle significant amounts of waste.
One of Queensland’s largest compost worm farms, Paul Harrey and Pene Mitchell’s Worms Downunder farm in Glenview, is home to over two million worms, their two young sons and a busy office sending wriggling packages around Australia and overseas.
Compost worms process their own body weight in waste a day, so the tiny take-away container of worms Dr Harrey’s friend gave him in 2005 were destined to make an impact.
The worms quickly established themselves in an old kitchen sink in the couple’s then-Brisbane home before being moved to a bathtub, and eventually the entire area under their Queenslander home.
“Feeding the hundreds of worms was a challenge; we were begging for food scraps from neighbours and friends,” Dr Harrey said.
The industrial designer, engineer and then-manager of a successful industrial design team, Dr Harrey recalls scavenging through bins at the Brisbane fruit and vegetable markets to keep up with the demand.
“Friends were out doing normal things and there I was trying to find food for worms,” he said.
Dr Harrey vividly remembers his first sale, 1kg of worms sold for $20, which would retail for $90 today.
“I was so excited, I could not believe I was making money from it,” he said.
There’s excitement from customers too, with the hundredth worm habitat awaiting delivery.
“Every time I build one, they sell,” Dr Harrey said.
Released in January, the worm habitat is the shape and size of a council-provide wheelie bin, but has a custom fitted internal base, a porthole for composted soil collection, a tap to collect liquid fertiliser and pest resistant air vents.
The worm habitat will help many Australians recycle more. A 2007 government-commissioned report said Australia’s 10.8 million households were throwing out 270kg of organic matter every year.
Powerlink Queensland, which employs over 850 staff, has two large worm habitats at their Brisbane office recycling all sorts of organic waste.
“Staff feed the worms food scraps, paper napkins, tea bags, coffee grinds, vegetable-based packing pellets and paper from catalogues,” administrative assistant Melanie Dixon said.
“They really like watermelon.”
Senior lecturer in environmental microbiology at the University of the Sunshine Coast Ipek Kurtboke said introducing organisms such as worms and termites to waste had enormous potential because of the ability of the resulting enzymes to break it down.
At Kingfisher Bay Resort on Fraser Island, worms recycle about 1 sq m of kitchen scraps and 2000 litres of paper scraps every two to three weeks, general manager Tony Barradale says.
Guests take eco tours to the sewage works and find out how their waste, shredded office papers, cardboard and kitchen scraps are processed by the onsite worm farm into rich compost used to grow the kitchen’s herbs.
“Rangers take pride in our poo farm, happy to show it off to international and domestic visitors,” Mr Barradale said.
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