Wiggle Room
Plenty Magazine
By Emma Johnson
Kate Zidar is making composting her mission in the most unlikely of places: the concrete-covered metropolis of New York City. "Composting is perfect for high-density urban living, and it's critical because of New York poor soil quality and waste management problems," Zidar says. "And worm composting works fast and take up a small amount of space."
Zidar, 29 , who works for New York Lower East Side Ecology Center, says that individual composting-as opposed to community-wide programs-is the only way to make a significant dent in slashing the amount of trash generated in urban areas. New York City along generates five tons of food waste Each week; Zidar calculates that if all 8 million New Yorkers fed their table scraps to worms in their own compost bins, the city could reduce food wasre by 75 percent.
Zidar, who began experimenting with worm composting at home in 2004, has created a model that can help make that happen. While working her daily shift at the Green Dome community garden in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood in the summer of 2005 , Zidar encouraged curious passersby to check out the garden whirlpool-sized compost bin, which was writhing with worms.
By that Thanksgivings, they had composted nearly two and a half tons of waste that had been donated by area residents who had stopped by to learn about her project. "I don't know if that is one elephant or two," Zidar says oft he mass. [That is eight to ten baby African elephants by our count - Ed]
The popularity of this effort led Zidar to host a free worm composting workshop for the people she'd recruited through her impromptu summer lessons. Twenty people showed up; ten went home with compost bins. She repeated the workshop in the summer of2006, and was pleased that a few of the previous year's waste donors didn't show up-she assumed they're at home feeding table scraps to their own worms.
Her enthusiasm for vermiculture struck not long after she moved to New York City in 1997, when she learned that the city was responsible for New York State's N o. I ranking as a garbage exporter, and her home state of Pennsylvania's N o. 1 ranking as a garbage Importer. " l could just imagine throwing away a paper cup, it going into a garbage can, then being carried away by a truck that drives around my neighborhood," she said. "l imagined it would be transferred to a longdistance hauler and eventually I'd be sending my cup back to my mom on Route 51 south of Pittsburgh. I took it a little bit personally."
Zidar earned a master's degree in city and regional planning and began working for the LES Ecology Center before graduating. Her job involves environmental advocacy, grant writing, and conducting workshops for kids and adults about composting, fishing, and the various powers of worms. "l had no affection for the red wiggler worm until I started showing them to a bunch of disinterested kids," she says with a laugh. "In every teaching situation, the worms always win. Kids and adults might start out totally grossed out, but that melts away in the course of 20 minutes. Resistance is futile. Worms have total charm."
CREATE YOUR OWN COMPOST
MATERIALS
1. Compost bin (available at lesecologycenter.org or composters.com, or make your own) 2. One pound of red wiggler worms (available at lesecologycenter.org or citfarmer.org) 3. Black-and-white newsprint (no colored or glossy Paper) a Fruit and vegetable scraps
PROCEDURE
1. lf you're not buying a compost bin, make one out of a wood or plastic container that's at least l2 inches deep and about l8 inches square. Cut or drill a few holes on the bottom and sides for proper drainage and ventilation.
2. ldentify a storage location where temperatures will remain between 40 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit, such as a kitchen cabinet, Pantry or Garage.
3. Shred the newsprint into one-inch strips and soak them in water until saturated. Squeeze out the excess moisture and fluff the strips, filling the compost bin to three-quarters capacity. 4. Add the red wiggler worms. They'll rush to the dark, warm bottom of the bin.
5. Start feeding your wigglers! Always place food scraps underneath the newspaper strips. Worms are vegetarians - they love fruit and vegetable scraps, including citrus rinds, as well as coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, crushed eggshells, paper towels, and plant trimmings. Chop these goodies into one-inch chunks to help them decompose faster. Do not feed your worms meat, dairy grains, woody plant prunings, or non-biodegradable materials. A s your worm colony thrives, add moist newspaper strips to maintain a 5-inch layer, which provides fiber to the worms and stabilizes the temperature and humidity of the bin.
6. Two to three months after you've begun, it's harvest time! First, don t feed your worms for two week, then pile the dark brown compost on one side of the bin and place fresh food and bedding on the other. Wait another two week for the worms to vacate the compost material in search of fresh food. You can then remove the compost material from the bin. Be sure to harvest it every few months, as the compost is poisonous to the worms if it remains in the bin for too long.
7. To stave off fruit flies, follow these tips:
- Microwave or freeze tropical fruit skins to kill larvae before adding them to the bin.
- Add a few tablespoons of lime juice to the bin to raise the material's acidity.
- Adhere a fly trap inside the bin by placing wine or beer in a plastic bottle with the neck removed.
- Attach fly paper to underside of the bin's lid.
© Plenty Magazine/Emma Johnson