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It’s Christmas, and while Kiwi families rely on scraps to feed them during Boxing Day and beyond, more food is wasted during the week of December 25 than at any other time of the year, according to the Love Food Hate group. Waste.
Why Waste founder Leo Murray shows a worm farm.
Photo: Supplied / Fluro Gray
The group has campaigned in the past to prevent people from overcrowding their shopping carts during Christmas.
But those who end up with excess food scraps can turn their minds to worm farms, and Why Waste has a novel solution.
Offers Worm Farm Subscriptions – For a fee of $ 25 a month, you can have a worm farm on your property that the Why Waste team will take care of for you.
Josh Storey runs the Auckland branch of the business where he has around 30 worm farms that he serves on a monthly basis.
Josh Storey, Waste Auckland Membership Ambassador.
Photo: Supplied / Geoff Reid
“We check in once a month to make sure it’s healthy. Our job is to keep you from smelling it. You just put it next to your containers and you can leave it in our hands,” Storey says.
“They are quite useful little systems. They are completely vermin-proof; you don’t have to worry about rats. When the ecosystem is balanced, there is no smell and the worms digest the waste into rich soil that you can use.”
The farms are roughly the same size as a large dumpster, a factor that helps, Storey says – he even installed one in an apartment parking lot.
But it’s mainly part of the puzzle of making a living and doing things right on the planet, he says.
“It’s about changing to be more resilient. This is just one way to become more self-reliant.”
Why Waste founder Leo Murray says the company started as a broader sustainability consultancy.
Why Waste founder Leo Murray with some of the worm farms that are available by subscription.
Photo: Supplied / FluroGrey
“It kept emerging that waste was a really big problem … and we were collecting compost from companies, but we still felt like we were part of the problem, allowing people to produce waste.”
Love Food Hate Waste says that New Zealand households alone throw away 157,389 tons of food a year.
“Now with the worms, by bringing the worms to the place where the waste is created, we are eliminating the need for fossil fuels and … building earth on the site.
“There are a few different angles because we have a soil depletion problem and when biodegradable waste goes to the landfill, it creates methane, which is 30 times worse than carbon dioxide. [as a greenhouse gas].
“So we are reducing waste, reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but also trying to encourage people to grow food or at least grow more biophilic landscapes … the healthier the landscape or ecology, the healthier humans are when they’re at it. “
Why subscriptions?
“There are a number of benefits … in the future, many products are going to be services because it is about access, not ownership over, a certain thing. You are seeing a lot of that with things like the technology sector”, says Murray , who is interested in a circular economy.
Photo: Supplied / FluroGrey
“Basically we are applying that kind of membership model to something that is normally a product, the worm farm, and the benefit to the consumer is that it is guaranteed to work.”
If a farm is down, the Why Waste team will fix it or provide a new one, says Murray.
“So you have this guaranteed worm population and you are minimizing the waste you are throwing away so that it becomes cost neutral.”
Farms can handle up to 2kg of food waste per day, and how much material you have for them depends on what you eat; vegans, for example, would produce more food scraps.
The team has a few “tricks up its sleeve” to keep the worms happy.
“People who have a job, a career, a family, you expect to be master worm growers, so it’s like having a pool or lawn manager.”
Starting off, Why Waste identified city dwellers who were short on time and space as those who could benefit from subscribing to the worm farm.
“We have some surprises on the way … but what seems to be gaining a lot of momentum are companies that want to be a little more responsible or organizations associated with the government that might have a sustainability policy or mandate to reduce waste.”
Worm farms are an easy win for them, one that doesn’t require a lot of cost, says Murray.
“Worm farms are quite dynamic – they can serve one person to a large family and even then some of the largest offices we have on board – the Bay of Plenty Regional Council has 12 worm farms and manages six floors of a building.”
And while farms make it easy for those who subscribe, Murray hopes that isn’t the main factor in getting people to get them.
But, he says, “To be realistic, we just need to allow people to make the right decision.”
Why waste worm farm subscriptions are mostly available in Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Waikato and Dunedin, but Murray hopes to expand to Wellington in 2021.
The farms cost $ 25 per month and have a setup fee of $ 25, both plus GST.
