Americans are eating more than ever. As a result, the amount of food waste sent to landfills is also expanding. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), more than 25 percent of the food we eat, or about 96 million pounds of food per year, goes to waste. The nation spends about $1 billion a year to dispose of food waste,

Recovering food waste has many accepted benefits, including avoided collection and disposal fees; providing food to needy people or for use in compost or animal feed; helping meet waste reduction; and sustaining local recycling goals.

You can help by composting your own household’s food waste and here’s how to do it!

Worms

Worm bins (vermicomposting systems) are simply dark, closed boxes, which employ redworms, moist shredded newspaper and food scraps. If the correct environment is maintained, the worms will thrive and continuously produce worm castings, a high quality soil amendment.

Materials to Use:

Feed your worms kitchen scraps, excluding meat, bones, fatty foods and dairy products. Yard trimmings can also be fed to worms.

Setting Up the Worm Bin:

• -Locate the worm bin where it won’t get above 80 degrees and where there is plenty of ventilation. Keep the bin dark so the worms stay near the surface.
• Fill the bin with bedding, such as thinly shredded newspaper or corrugated cardboard, manure or brown leaves. Soak the bedding materials in water until thoroughly wet and then wring out excess water.
• Add redworms. The amount of worms necessary varies with the volume of food scraps generated. Use about two pounds of worms for a two-person household, four pounds for a four-person household, etc. Feed your new worms manure or coffee grounds for a few weeks to build up the population.
• Feed the worms as regularly as is convenient, rotating the placement of the scraps throughout the worm bin. Chopping the scraps into smaller pieces will decrease the time it takes the worms to break them down. Bury the scraps with a small amount of bedding and add only as much food as the worms are able to handle.
• Keep the worm’s environment moist but not soggy.
• In two to four months, the worms will have turned the wastes and bedding into a dark, rich humus material known as worm castings. To harvest the castings, move the worms to one side of the bin and add new bedding to the empty half. For the next month or two, bury food scraps in the new bedding only.

Containers

Containers can be made at home or purchased. If the container is made at home use a container with small ventilation holes on the bottom and sides. The bin should either have a tight fitting lid or be covered with black plastic to keep out light. You can use shallow wooden boxes of any length or width, but no more than one foot deep, and no less than eight inches deep.

Bins can also be purchased at the following local stores:

Orchard Supply Hardware:
1067 N. Davis Road, Salinas 422-9652

Home Depot:
1800 N. Main St., Salinas 443-9699

Monterey Regional Waste Management District
14201 Del Monte Blvd., Marina 384-5313

For a list of worm bin suppliers in California click here.