Using 0.1 kilos of earthworms to treat 300 kilos of organic rubbish

July 30, 2011 about Uncategorized

LookAtVietnam - The scientists from the Institute of Ecology and
Biological Resources have successfully used earthworms to treat organic rubbish,
which is believed to make a breakthrough in the waste treatment in Vietnam.

Breeding worms for animal and poultry feed, or using earthworms to treat
livestock waste are not the strange things in Vietnam. However, the scientists
from the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources have recently
successfully used earthworms to treat organic rubbish.
Initial success
“We have found out that 70 percent of household rubbish is organic waste which
can be recycled. Therefore, we decided to use earthworms to treat household
waste with worms,” said Dr Huynh Thi Kim Hoi from the Institute of Ecology and
Biological Resources, the head of the project.
“Only 0.1-0.2 kilos of worms is needed to treat 300 kilos of organic waste with
the treatment efficiency of 100 percent,” she added.
The scientists’ team then developed the mechanism of treating organic waste with
worms to replace the traditional methods such as burning or dumping rubbish. The
mechanism was used on a trial basis at five households in Lam Hong Commune in
Dong Anh district, and on Buoi and Long Bien market areas in Hanoi.
After that, the mechanism has been spontaneously developed in some other
localities such as Me Linh, Tu Liem and Hoang Mai.
With the mechanism, rubbish is gathered from households and markets. Organic
waste including tree leaves, straw, vegetables, banana skins… are put together
in a tank. When the rubbish gets rotten, it is the time to put worms into the
rubbish tank.
The amount of worms depends on the amount of rubbish. In order to treat 300
kilos of rubbish, farmers just need to put 0.1-0.2 kilos of worms. The organic
waste then becomes the feed for the worms.
Will the mechanism be used in a large scale?
The experiments all showed that treating waste with worms can bring high
efficiency of 100 percent, and no odor has been left after the treatment. Nguyen
The Luc, a farmer of the Phu Tri Agriculture Cooperative in Kim Hoa Commune in
Me Linh district, said that he has used organic fertilizer made of worm-treated
rubbish to manure vegetables and he is satisfactory with the results.
“We don’t have to spend money to buy pesticide, and chemical fertilizer, while
the organic fertilizer is save for users,” he said. “Especially, we can feed
fowl and ducks with worms, which allows us to reduce the livestock feed volume
we have to purchase at high prices. Therefore, the production costs have
decreased, while the economic values have increased”.
However, according to Dr Hoi, the mechanism can only succeed if there are some
favorable conditions. She admitted that the mechanism has not been expanded
because of the problems in rubbish classification.
“It is very difficult to persuade people to put organic rubbish and inorganic
rubbish separately. It is the habit of people of putting everything together
into plastic bags and then putting the bags on the pavements which will be taken
away by the cleaners,” she said.
Also, in order to treat waste this way, people have to breed worms, while
households need to have large space to use worms to treat rubbish right at their
homes.
“If there is no active support and participation of people, the mechanism would
die like many other previous waste treatment projects,” Hoi said.
Every year, Vietnam every year discharges 15 million tons of solid waste, 80
percent of which are domestic waste, 17 percent industrial waste, one percent of
toxic waste, and two percent of other kinds of waste.
In Hanoi alone, the total solid domestic waste is about 5000 tons per day, while
the volume of rubbish increases by 15 percent per annum. It is estimated that by
2015, the city will have no more place for rubbish dump.
Dat Viet