By Yiler Huang

Can worms be the answer to global warming? Dr. Lin was a special speaker who came to our school to talk about organic farming and composting. She believes that the worms could be a solution to reducing global warming. She is an expert on organic farming and has her own farm, where she does negative carbon footprint research with worms. She had a presentation in our school about the worm boxes she provided us for observation. She sells the worm boxes for people to study and learn from. Through education, she hopes that we can minimize our carbon footprint.

In her presentation, she introduced us to compost tea, or worm tea. It is the urine of worms that is produced in the process of composting. It has many good bacterias inside to make the soil fertile, which helps plants grow healthier. The process needs a special breed of worms capable of breaking down normal human food. She also explained how to recognize different breeds of earthworms through the color and the band on earthworms called clitellum. Benefits of using worms for composting is because of its natural aspect to also help reduce food waste.

Dr. Lin talked about how a lot of the food waste either gets burned or buried, which is very bad for the environment. She talked about different forms of composting in her presentation. In her presentation, she focused on three types of composting; Natural composting, Oxygen composting, and Non-oxygen composting. Natural composting is the slowest in terms of time, and just requires throwing food into a worm box and letting nature do its job. It creates the lowest amount of bad chemicals, which will help the environment more. Oxygen composting is medium speed compared to the other two forms. This method requires waste to be put into water and be stirred. This process does not smell and doesn’t create anything harmful to the environment. Non-oxygen composting is the fastest process of the three. All you do is put waste into a hot bin and let it decompose itself. While it is the fastest process, it also creates the most amount of Methane gas. While natural composting like worm boxes may be the slowest of the composting processes, it is the most efficient for average citizens as it only requires food waste.

A successful scenario where she gave was from a farm in Hong Kong called Homeland Green. Where they were able to reverse the process of man-made desertification through the use of spoiled fungi. This shows that natural composting has a higher chance of revitalizing dead soil. She also warned of the danger of modern farming techniques of sowing fields, which means making the soil more soft through flipping the upper layers of soil. This process releases carbon, that was supposed to be in the soil, into the air where it mixes with oxygen creating carbon dioxide. A dangerous gas for our environment, it also kills the soil even faster because it can not hold water. Natural composting would not have these problems. On top of all that, it will keep the soil healthier for a longer time because of water retention. Homeland Green sets a very good example if we allow nature to do its job.

Dr. Lin taught us the benefits of natural composting over the other forms. How composting is better for the environment as well as which form is best for general use. In addition to worm boxes, natural composting, and how this form of waste disposal is extremely easy for the general public. She also taught us about the importance of organic farming through her example of Homeland Green farm in Hong Kong shows a good example of how we can save the Earth. By replacing the spoiled fungi with worm tea, we can reduce our carbon footprint.