You know how we’re meant to separate out our organic waste – potato peelings and such – as part of our contribution to saving the planet? And it then gets recycled by eco-friendly worms, which turn it into compost? So that more plants can be grown, and we don’t have to tip it into landfill sites, and Gaia is happy, and global warming is reduced, and we can all feel pretty damn good about ourselves? Well, there’s a problem:
Worm composting could be doing more harm than good to the environment, according to research in Germany.
“Worms produce a significant amount of greenhouse gases. Recent research done by German scientists has found that worms produced a third of nitrous oxide gases when used for composting,” an expert was quoted as saying.
In an interview with a leading renewable resources journal, Jim Frederickson, senior research fellow at Britain`s Open Universities faculty of technology, said the German research showed that worm composting has deleterious effects on the environment that should be considered more seriously.
Worms naturally produce nitrous oxide gases when they are put into the process of composting…
“We have concentrated on getting waste out of landfill and into worm composting systems but they can actually produce more greenhouse gases than landfill sites produce,” Frederickson told Materials Recycling Week, a leading publication for the recycling and waste-management industry.
In Germany and other environmentally aware countries, governments have supported the composting of waste in efforts to reduce the land filling of biodegradable waste. This includes encouraging householders to invest in home composting systems…
Speaking of worms, Frederickson told the magazine: “Everybody loves them because they think they can do no harm but they contribute to global warming. People are looking into alternative waste treatments but we have to make sure that we are not jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
“We need to investigate all alternative systems for greenhouse potential.
“The emissions that come from these worms can actually be 290 times more potent than carbon dioxide and 20 times more potent than methane. In all environmental systems you get good points and bad points.”
This is because worms used in composting emit nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas 296 times more powerful, molecule for molecule, than carbon dioxide.
There’s a moral here somewhere if I could be bothered to work it out.
Anyway, if it’s going to be nitrous oxide rather than carbon dioxide that’ll do for us, at least we’ll die laughing.
Mick Hartley 
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