Why worms

Every household produces garbage. There are different categories, many of these are recycled in Japan but a lot, including kitchen garbage, is collected and burned in incinerators. Kitchen waste, such as vegetable peels and scraps, are 97% water therefore incinerating these is like pouring water into the incinerator.

If we want to reduce the amount of garbage that goes to the incinerators/landfills, we should reduce it at the source, at home.

Composting kitchen and garden waste is a great way to recycle organic matter but difficult to implement in cities. Therefore, over 30 years ago my father started a household worm farm. The process to recycle waste with worms is called vermicomposting.

Vermicomposting is quite a simple process. We try to replicate nature in a box.

Any container such as a planter box can be filled with bedding as habitat for worms. Scraps can be fed on a daily basis. The worms will convert the scraps to valuable vermicompost.

There are thousands of different species of worms. In vermiculture we prefer the use of yellowtail worms or eisenia fetida. It is a species of earthworm adapted to decaying organic material. These worms thrive in rotting vegetation, compost, and manure. Under optimal conditions, these worms can ingest their bodyweight in food everyday, making them the perfect composting “machine”.