By: Trevor Shah
The Queen's Vermicomposting Program was initiated in the fall term of the 2009-2010 academic year and is the first systematic University Residence vermicomposting program in Canada. What’s more, the program is entirely student driven. Queen’s university helped us run the initiative through paying the necessary expenses to lease 11 hand-made vermicomposters from a local, student-run non-profit business called the Living Cities Company.
The idea for the Vermicomposting program came about in April 2009 when four students came together to explore ideas on how to make Queen’s residence greener. Though the project was initiated by four students, it became the project of hundreds of students living in residence. Throughout the year, the residents of the 11 floors in residences, led by their Residence Advisors, looked after the day-to-day maintenance of the composters.
It should be noted that these vermicomposters were used to process the food students ate outside of the cafeteria. Most students ate in the cafeteria which uses an industrial composter; this industrial composter is entirely separate from the vermicomposting program.
From the point of view of residents, Residence Advisors, custodial staff, and the Queen’s community, the program has been successful. As shown by organic waste statistics tracked by students in two different residence buildings, each vermicomposter is able to consistently divert 2-4kg of waste each every week. Throughout the 8 months, we were able to divert about 400kg of waste through using 11 vermicomposters.
To promote the initiative and garner support we wrote articles to 3 different media sources; this was one of the best ideas as we were shortly contacted by CBC Radio Host Wei Chen, who read one of our articles in a local Kingston newspaper and interviewed us on CBC Ontario Morning.
These articles can be found at:
http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2009-11-10/news/residences-venture-vermicomposting/
http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1773166
http://qnc.queensu.ca/gazette/4b0bf3bcb0220.pdf
There is an array of benefits of vermicomposting for residence buildings. They include:
First, vermicomposting offers an easy, cheap, and sustainable way to divert student generated organic waste from garbage cans/landfills. Since you can dispose of waste on-site, there is no energy cost of transportation. Moreover, the start-up cost of vermicomposting is almost twenty times less expensive than procuring an industrial composter. Vermicomposters are also self-propagating, as the worms are able to reproduce within 3 months, allowing their offspring to be used to start another vermicomposter.
Second, vermicomposting is net-energy-neutral and non-polluting. Unlike industrial composters, the vermicomposting process does not require inputs of heat energy, because vermicomposting utilizes worms to convert waste into fertilizer. In addition, no harmful chemicals are added, making vermicomposting 100% organic.
Third, the vermicomposting progress is fast. In general, 2 pounds of red wiggler worms will decompose 1 pound of waste within 24 hours. The ability of worms to consume their weight daily means that the system has high-throughput and is able to handle the waste-generation requirements of students in residences.
Fourth, the compost produced by the worms can be sold as an excellent fertilizer. The vermicompost increases soil workability, water holding capacity, erosion, while moderating temperature of the soil environment. Compost also enhances microbial action in the soil, further increasing the remineralisation of soil nutrients for plant use.
Finally, vermicomposting has a great educational value, as it exposes you to the first-hand practicality and benefits of vermicomposting.
We are looking to double the number of vermicomposters to 22 next year and we have submitted a 26-page report to residence administration proposing this expansion.
Trevor Shah is a second-year commerce student at Queen’s University and is one of the four founding members of the Vermicomposting program.
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