Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

Farting Worms

July 20, 2007

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.

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5 responses to “Farting Worms”

IanCroydon

July 20, 2007

“This includes encouraging householders to invest in home composting systems”
This, to me, sums up the whole hypocrisy of environmentalism. The sheer indulgance of convincing everyone to adopt a “natural” self-sustaining lifestyle a la George Monbiot’s eco-village, fantastic idea until you need clean water and hospital treatment.
Home composting, fine. Home Wind Turbine, fine. Home Nuclear Power Plant, er no thanks.
I’ve looked into “combined heat and power” (CHP) systems, which take waste heat, typically from Water Boilers, and convert to power, although in such cases the “waste heat” was generated by traditional means anyway (gas or electric), it does result in a net power reduction and is thus a bit more environmentally friendly.
(On a side note the application of a Stirling Engine to CHP is fascinating, I’d advise anyone how doesn’t know about Stirling Engines to find out).
Why not go further and have a Home Incinerator ? Instead of using unsustainable resources to collect and process waste plastics, why not dump them in a small, compact, self-contained and relatively safe (it would have to be) outside incinerator with CHP which then generates power directly for the home, even considering the (self supplied) power needed for “scrubbing” the toxic fumes, there’d still be a net power gain and overall the energy resources on transporting the waste are eliminated almost entirely (there’d still be a small amount of contaminant to be got rid of) ?
Next stage, a Home Nuclear Fusion Plant, when they become available, complete with earplugs to avoid being deafened by the Greenie heads exploding around you.

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dearieme

July 20, 2007

A combination of landfilling, with methane recovery, and incineration, with power generation, is pretty good stuff. CHP, of course, is good and ancient stuff – a friend of mine grew up in Minnesota long before WWII, in a town where steam was distributed in winter in return for a standing charge – not even metered. Nice to see the Stirling engine coming round again, Ian. God I feel old sometimes.

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Andrew Duffin

July 20, 2007

Like there were no worms in the world other than those employed by the greenies for composting. Come on guys, have you any idea how many squillions there are in every acre of grassland?
And as for “worms produced a third of nitrous oxide gases when used for composting”, what can one say? A third of what? As compared with what? It’s just completely meaningless.
If this is the best they can come up with, I guess we can relax.

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Dom

July 20, 2007

We know there were always worms. The article points to the modern habit of feeding them. (Which I do. I don’t care about this article, my garden looks much nicer since I started burying my garbage). You’re right, though — “a third of nitrous oxide” seems odd to me.
Aside from that, is it time we looked into paper recycling? Is it worth it? I’ve found that many people still believe that the Amazon rain forest is being depleted to make paper, which isn’t even close to being true.

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DaninVan

July 20, 2007

Dom; Here in Canada (B.C. and the Yukon) we have gazillions of dead and dying trees due to the Pine Beetle. We literally can’t harvest the trees fast enough to come even close to stopping the epidemic, much less utilize the wood before it’s non-salvageable. A three week road trip last summer almost had me in tears when I saw the devastation.

Click to access MPB_Magnitude_Maps_2001to2006.pdf

For scale B.C. is 364,764 SQ MI in area. By Comparison, the United Kingdom is only 94,525 SQ.MI.
The dead and rotting wood is a natural and unavoidable source of greenhouse gases.

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