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.