Waste Management Using Earthworms

Approximately ten per cent of homes in the Irish countryside still use underground septic tanks to deal with their household sewage. The biggest drawback to the tanks is that they have to be emptied two or three times each year. It is also important to site the tanks carefully to ensure that the contents cannot leak into the ground water supply. As a solution for storing human feces and urine, the Irish Earthworm Company has developed a household wormery for composting domestic waste.

Waste Management Using Earthworms County Kerry, Ireland Correspondent: Ireland has one of Europe’s fastest growing economies but in the rural areas one in 10 homes still do not have main sewage. They use underground septic tanks instead but these tanks have one main drawback. If they are old or badly cited they can leak and contaminate the underground water supply. Michael O Coileain (Kerry County Council): I think the day of the septic tank is almost gone and thus we have to replace it with something else. The economy already continues to grow. This is huge amount of housing development especially in rural areas and we have to find another solutions in the septic tank. Worm’s Eye Correspondent: In County Kerry in Southern Ireland one man waits anxiously for his post while most people get letters this delivery contains an unusual package. These worms may be the magic ingredient to finding an alternative to septic tank. Michael Lynch has developed a technique for dealing with human species and urine. It’s what he calls a wormery and it is used to compost domestic waste. Made of recycled plastic the prototype tank can be made to any size. Micheal Lynch (Irish Earthworm Company): What we have here is the first type for the sewage tank that we’re developing. Here we have a cross section of the material which would fill the tank eventually. You have the bedding mixture containing the worms. You also have a filter level of sand and 2 types of gravel down below and what happens is the food or the solid waste will come in separate from the liquid. The liquid will flow through and the bacteria that build up here will feed off and clean the pollutants in the liquid itself and the worms on top will feed on the solid part of the waste and the liquid there will join off here through the valves and often to either small wetland system or into land percolation. Hopefully we can restore it ourselves so around about 2-1/2 thousand pounds but the beauty of it is that you can take it away on a trailer if you limit it to about and install it yourself for around about 14 to 1500 pounds and it also has a great replication that it is transferable. It doesn’t necessarily have to stand on, it can go anywhere because there’s indigenous populations of worms all over the world that can utilize this and use the containers, and it’s not even really our container, anyone can build a similar container and use the process. The idea of a wormery sounds very feasible and we’re very optimistic that will work and as well as it’s the kind of technology that could be used anywhere and this whole idea of getting rid of the septic tank this idea of worms dealing with human worms is very, very attractive and that it will eliminate such huge amounts of problems. And all of a sudden you’re transforming this waste into something very positive. We have several breeders producing worms for us and not unlikely different factors, it’s the simplest form, the easiest form of breeding worms that mimic nature. It’s a very good worm for human waste and this is the Tiger worm or the –. It is very good at taking kitchen waste. This fellow here would be a good old round worm and that would be a – he’s a woodland worm he obviously very good at taking care of cardboard and newspaper. My worms are my friends. It’s not really do I make a living from them. I find them extremely interesting and the more and more research we do into them, the more and more benefits we find. It’s a fledgling industry merely they’ve already been solid for the last 30 years or so and has more local authorities take them on to give more research down into them. I think value really just begun to scratch the iceberg. Well the composting within the waste was really just a natural progression of what we were doing anyway and worms will occur in nature in waste so it makes sense really to follow through that if you’re feeding them predominantly waste manuals that they will have no problem getting with human waste. It’s like having a thousand dust men and a thousand gardeners working for you for nothing. It’s the beauty of the system.