The Chicago Tribune ran a story recently about a woman who has launched a new trend in at home parties. Instead of selling makeup or cooking gadgets to her friends, she sells garbage-eating worms to moms. And it’s a big hit!
These are not fat, slithery outdoor earthworms either. According to the Urban Worm Girl website, these are a smaller, slimmer kind of worm. And they love leftover fruit, vegetables, egg shells, rice, coffee grounds, newspaper, and even wet egg cartons.
In return for your food scraps, the worms leave you with a beautiful tray of castings, which is supposed to smell just like rich dirt. While gardeners have been composting scraps outdoors forever to enhance their crops, these worms are kept indoors in small trays and bins close to the kitchen.
Since food waste is right behind yard clippings and paper in contributing to a household’s trash, having an active worm colony–vermiculture is the tech term–will reduce your food waste by about 500 pounds each year. Not to mention that your landscape will benefit too.
According to her website, this is about as green as you can get and easy to do. It appeals to moms concerned about the environment and makes for an interesting family project. If someone hosted a party like this, I would definitely attend. I would have to wear plastic gloves, though, before I even thought about touching a wiggler. I wonder if she offers franchises for WAHMs?
photo credit: ?ick Harris
One Response to “Move Over Mary Kay: Worm Parties Are a Big Hit”
Cee Tindall
1 year ago
What a novel idea to have an education party about recycling our kitchen scraps! At least spending money on this party would return rich compost in months ahead!