A BIN full of worms is helping an Ellesmere Port firm divert its food waste from landfill.
Alchem Waste Management Services has a wheelie bin packed with more than 5,000 worms who have been gobbling up their scraps since April.
Vicky McMaster, MD at Alchem, said: “We feed food waste to 5,000 worms that eat their own body weight per day and turn it into compost.
“We can use the compost and sell it on to people.
“If we have any scraps from dinner we open the lid and feed them. They eat all the fibres from the food.
“They’ll wait until the food turns to mush and within a week it will be gone.
“We keep the worms happy – they just want feeding.”
The level of compost in the 1,100 litre bin increases over time as the worms work their way through the decaying food.
Ms McMaster added: “The wormery is very easy to keep and it’s the way forward for reducing landfill costs and helping the environment.
“We feed the worms food scraps such as fruit and vegetable peels, pulverized egg shells and tea bags and from that we turn food scraps into compost.
“An average wormery can be split into sections and the kitchen waste deposited into the various areas on a basic ratio of 1lb of food to every 2lbs of worms. This system has helped schools, businesses and even worm enthusiasts keen to make a difference.
“I would like to thanks Keith Marks and Tara Connolly for their help and advice in setting up the wormery and I hope we can continue doing our part for the environment.”
