Food Scrap Experiment Results and Analysis

This is an example of a few of the pots I got back for my test. Early indication is looking good for my project as people seem to create less food scraps than it was originally thought. I will not be able to make a final call until I get more back.

After roughly 2 weeks and many messages I have decided to call the test here. Since I left the experiment as anonymous I have no idea how still owes me a pot of food scraps. Of the 35 pots I sent out I only received 11 back. While I would prefer more pots back I have to move on with my project or I will fall behind

On the bright side, the way I set up the excel spreadsheet to put all the results in means that I do not have to do much maths to get my result.

After working out how much food scraps 1 person generated in 7 days I divided the number by 11 to get my answer. I have found that one person creates 1.2L of food scraps every week. If I times this number by 3 to account for the bedding material needed for the worms I get 3.6L.

From my survey research it was seen that people tended to live with either 2 or 4 people. For 2 people I need 7.4L of space and for 4 people 14.8L. This is far smaller than the orignal box I had for 2 people so even making the system work for 4 people is well within my reach.

Vermicomposting Survey Analysis

From the results I received from my survey I have managed to pick up on consistency as well as the general feeling people have about worms farms. I will not comment on all areas of the survey but will touch on what I believe to be the most important or interesting areas.

Residence:
The majority or people that answered my survey lived in a house or a flat. This is good news for me as it means that the majority of people have access to at least some form of garden to use the worm castings in after they have been collected

How many people live at your residence?
This is also fairly important to my project because I can work out how many people will be using the worm farm. It seems that between 2-4 people is the average so 2 farms could be created to accommodate both parties. Once I receive the results from my pot test I can finalize a specific size.

Why do you recycle? If you do not recycle, why do you choose not to?

The general response to why people recycle is due to the fact that people care about a green planet and reducing pollution. From a previous question 90% of people said they did recycle so I feel that they will be willing to try a worm farm as it will directly befit them as well as reducing the waste going into landfills.

What do you currently do with your food scraps?

It seems that the majority of people throw their food scraps in the general rubbish bin to be thrown out with everything else. A few people compost their scraps but I am unsure if this is because they have their own compost system or it is a service offered by their council.

Have you considered using worms to compost your food scraps in the past?

While they responses for this question is split almost 50/50 for thinking about using a worm farm, only a very small group of people actually said they owned a worm farm. Of they people that said they have considered worms before, some of these could have farms themselves now but didn't say at the time.

What would you do with the compost created by your Worm Farm?

The majority of answers for this question is to use it on their gardens. A couple of people said they do not have a garden so looking into a planter pot that can be placed anywhere is another area I will look into. One person said that they would sell it on eBay so it seems that even if the compost wasn't needed they would still compost their scraps to get something back from it later. This can tie into the system I will need to create to deliver and pick up the necessary ingredients.

Vermicomposting Survey Results

These are the results from the survey I sent out. I received 41 responses which is a nice sample size to look at. I will look further into the responses in a serrate post.

Fab Lab Talk

Located inside the Massey Industrial block in an area called the Fab Lab. This lab looks more into the mass production side of machining as they have a range of processes that is more in line with fabrication than the basic threedee work shop. Around the back of their building however they have a collection of worm farms in a tumble bin style. Food scraps are placed in one end and the bin is turned once a weeks to combine it with the existing compost. I went to the fab lab to talk to Wendy and Craig to get some advice on what they have learned over the years they have run the composting.

The first thing they mentioned was how hard it is to get people to put the right items into the compost bin. From the pictures below you can see a info-graphic that states what can go in the bins and what can. Even something as simple as remove the fruit stickers from peelings is something people need to do but is rarely done. I am hoping that this will not be a problem in my own system as each will be independently owned and operated by that household so it is that persons responsibility to make sure they get it right.

Next they gave me some good advice for how to deal with the compost after the worms finished. I already knew that the worm tea needs to diluted with water by roughly 75%, but I did not know that the compost itself also needs to be diluted with normal soil. This creates an annoyance because it means this system cannot be fully self sufficient. The fab lab uses saw dust from one of their machine as the brown ingredient for their worm farms and a 1 part food scraps to 2 parts brown is recommend. People in the home are unlikely to have such a large amount of brown hanging around so it is vital I design a pick-up and drop off service that can deliver both soil and brown material, and can also take away excess compost.

Lastly we just had a general talk about the systems they have and want to implement. Before using the tumble bins they tried creating their own bin out of a metal drum and the Marae on campus also used the Hungry Bin which I have looked into previously in my research.

Tumble bins behind the fab lab

Visual info-graphic of what can and can't be put into the worm bins

Food Scrap Experiment

The most pressing problem I currently have with my project at the moment is the size of the bins that will be used to hold the food scraps and worms. Below is the reccomended size of bin needed for 2 peoples food scraps over 1 week. (Water bottle for scale.) This size seems way too big to me and I do not believe that this is the actual size.

To find out how much space people actually need for their food scraps I decided to run a test of my own. I created a chart that will tell me how many people contributed to filling up the pot, the number of times the pot was filled and what went into the pot. I bought 40 2L containers and handed them out to my Industrial class and co-workers at my job.

Once I get the pots back in 1 weeks I can divided the pots filled by the number of people working on that specific pot to get and average of how much food scraps people generate.

Vermicomposting Survey

To get a better understanding of who I will be designing for and also what areas people tend to live in I decided to set up a survey to get some basic results and opinions. While I do understand that the people that answer the survey represent a tiny portion of the entire area of interest it will still help me out in some areas.

Existing Worm Bin Products

Hungry Bin

Hungry bins are designed and made in New Zealand

They feature a tapered shape that takes food scraps in the top and castings out the bottom. The tapered shape means that only the finer castings can fall free from the bottom and the larger pieces remain in the top or neck.

Pros:

• Easy operation and usage
• Collects Worm Tea
• On wheels for easy movement
• Raised off the ground to deter vermin
• Large Capacity

Cons:

• Only suitable for outside

http://www.hungrybin.co.nz/

Waste Away Digester

The waste away digester focuses more towards large scale composting. It features 1 large bay that is filled at the top and left until the worms push the castings to the bottom. The castings are collected by using a long pole through a small door at the bottom of the bin.

Pros:

• Easy operation and usage
• Self watering system
• Large capacity
• Raised to deter vermin

Cons:

• Only for outdoor use
• Hard to collect castings
• Does not collect worm tea

http://www.wormsrus.co.nz/wasteaway.html

Worms R Us Bin
The Worms R Us Bin uses the basic stacking method of the flow through design. What makes this slightly different to other flow through bins is the option to have as many or few levels as you want. This is done through 2 different lid designs, one with holes and one without. If a new level is needed you can switch the lid and add another level.

Pros:

• Optional extra levels
• Can collect worm tea

Cons:

• Ugly aesthetic
• Not raised off the ground
• Need space for extra lids and trays

http://www.wormsrus.co.nz/wormsrus-bin.html

Can-O-Worms
The Can-O-Worms uses the same flow through design similar to the Worms R Us Bin. This has three levels that can work at the same time. Unlike the Worms R Us Bin, there are no lids to separate the levels. Instead the trays rest inside each other but other identical trays can be added if needed.

Pros:

• Can collect worm tea
• Raised off the ground to deter vermin
• Additional trays can be ordered online

Cons:

• Small capacity
• Plane aesthetic

http://www.abundantearth.com/store/canoworms.html

Post Concept Presentation Direction

After my concept presentation I received varied feedback for my 3 ideas.

It was obvious from the start that the least developed idea, being the Recycables Washer, had the most question marks raised for it and the direction ahead seems too simple to make an effective project out of it.

On the other side of things the Can and Bottle Crusher is the most complex mechanically but other than the way the can is put into the system, there does not seem to be much in the way of exploration their either.

I have decided to continue with the Worm Compost System. Layout, aesthetic and how the farm will be used are all areas I can look into. What differs this from the other 2 concepts in that the are multiple stages and directions this project can go and the system behind it can't be drawn on a single sheet of paper

Concept Presentation