Worm Mod Official Opening

On Saturday September 19th GBSAN opened the new Worm Mod at the Stanthorpe Farmers Markets! The Mod is an initiative of the Waste and Resource Recovery Team and is designed to investigate viable options for dealing with FOGO (Food Organics and Garden Organics) so that it doesn't end up in our landfill. In landfill, FOGO is a real problem, releasing methane as it rots and occupying space on the garbage truck as it is trucked to the Warwick Landfill (Stanthorpe Landfill is permanently closed now, so all garbage collections are trucked some 60 km to the Warwick cell). As you may recall, methane is a greenhouse gas, estimated to be 84 X as potent as carbon dioxide in the short term, so it is far better to prevent it being released by either capturing it as usable biogas, composting aerobically or feeding it to worms, chooks or small livestock.

The good news is that we can flip the narrative on FOGO, so instead of viewing it as garbage we can start to think of it as a potential resource and act to recover the value of this resource for our (and the planet's) benefit. The Worm Mod is a step in the right direction here. As well as diverting FOGO from landfill, the Mod will produce worm castings (vermicompost) and this can then be brewed up for even more value adding to make a compost tea which grows fantastic home fruit and veg, thus reducing our reliance on shop bought produce which may have been transported long distances. It's a win/win/win situation and we are excited to be part of this new project.

Over the next year the Resource Recovery Team will learn how to operate the Worm Mod to optimise inputs and outputs. At this stage we are not accepting FOGO until we have the data and confidence to be able to accept public donations. We will keep you posted with progress reports.