Worms Work
Initially the wormboxes seemed to appeal to those that were already waste aware but a greater cross-section of households are now becoming involved. To date the project has therefore mainly helped families/ individuals who are already on the recycling route achieve further waste reduction by dealing with food waste in an enclosed system. This system has proved to be simple and accessible. People express very positive feelings about being involved in the project and are enthusiastic about having a wormbox to tend and look after!
The majority of people responded by saying they will grow food with the worm compost.
The initial concept of working with classes to run wormery workshops for their families was not taken on board by any school that was involved in the project. We weren’t able to spend enough time with teachers early enough in the project to get the idea incorporated into their teaching plans and so it was perceived as creating extra work. With the new funding, over a longer period, we will be able to do more intensive work with schools, to develop wormery lesson plans and generally to support teachers to make better use of such projects to deliver cross-curricula learning.
There is more scope to encourage schools to communicate with each other and to share learning and experience.
We need to create good opportunities for discussion on the topic of food waste through gatherings and events and could make more use of social networking sites such as Facebook to encourage networking and support among participants.
Some people just don’t like worms!
