Apartment Composting 101: Vermicompost with Barb Finnin
UPDATE: We have modified this original design to a shallower, more airy worm bin. Check out our new design here, ryanishungry.com Cheers! Good Luck! ————————————– Barb Finnin is part of the amazing Freshtopia team. She’s a certified master composter- her specialty is Vermicomposting with worms. We were super excited to learn that we could compost in our city apartment with a homemade worm bin even though we don’t have a yard. Throwing food scraps away in the garbage is not something either …
Comments
What a great idea…They should use things like this in cities like Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic where there are many apartments and the trash can became a problem
Great vid. i got a pre-fab system for this from tierrapath
Also, PCBs shouldn’t be leaching on the inside of the bucket unless you keep your bin out in the sunlight. Plastic photodegrades.
For everyone concerned about inks in paper, the vast majority of newspapers in the world(america, especially) use soy based inks. Perfectly safe.
Nice video!!!
I only recommend to look for a better tray. I think that the compost inside the bin is going to drain all the tea worm once the process has evolved. That is a very precious organic fertilizer too.
And I don´t recommend to have the vermicompost bin in your kitchen for sanitation reasons.
You can’t deny the stuff in the paper HAS to be some funky stuff. There’s probably a problem that you might not be noticing. Ever wonder how your worms like the ‘taste’ of the funky inks and whatever the heck that stuff is made of. It can’t be good. I don’t even think we would feel that good eating that stuff. Not to mention it’s probably safe to assume that the inks don’t get fully broken down in their digestion so it’ll still be in the castings. Ink residues in your veggies. Yum!
you can use color but don’t use the glossy ones
I also wondered about pcbs from the plastic if it’s not food grade plastic …
Is straw better tha n printed paper? It seems really unorganic to use printed paper that must have loads of toxins in it if you want real organic compost for plants? That said… how fantastic this is for people without gardens! Thanks for posting this excellent and very helpful video x
don’t use color ink news paper. it contains high levels of heavy metals and other nasties …
there are only two of us making ‘trash’. I was amazed at how much compost material we made just ourselves. I sure hope more people start composting and worm composting. It will be awesome how much space we can save in landfills.
Thank you for the response. I have shredded up my paper and added it to the compost. Lets hope they like it !!!!
Very nicely done.. lots of great advise… this is a great recycling activity
there are differing opinions on this. i have never had a problem with colored print paper and my worms.
I noticed you used newspaper that had color print. I thought that you should only use the black and white pages and not the color print. Is that true???
Oh, by the way, the video is great. Thank you for posting it! Worms are little wonder workers!
i luv this vid more than any of the others i’ve seen. it’s way more hands on and step by step and more detailed. and more understandable. thank you so much. im definately spreading the word about this and going to try to get anyone i know doing this.
thank you so much for putting this up. As soon as I move out im so doing this!!
Future science project for my 8th grade students. Thanks for the help Barb!
-Mr. T
Part of my preparations for peak oil and the looming economic depression has been to make a deck garden here at my condo(see my videos). I used powdered organic fertilizer to get things started but I think my next step is to begin composting. Making a worm bin seems like a very good solution.
Nice video and very informative. I will start soon!
This is really great. But how do you harvest the castings?
Thanks for the great how-to.
Anyone know if there is an easy way to get red worms for free (or the cost of shipping)?
Thanks so much for putting this up!
I’m going to start my worm bin in a few days, as soon as midterm exams begin.
I hail from S. Korea.
I’m going to tell all students about this.