Cathy's Crawly Composters

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The Alliston Herald

February 13, 2004

Wriggly worms -- Tecumseth South Grade 3 student Bobby Moyer
showed classmates he has no problem with worms Feb. 4. The worms
were a part of a presentation on indoor composting, a program
Tec. South's Green Team is bringing into the school.
(Herald photo by Tracy Dermott)

Students get up close and personal with wrigglers

By Tracy Dermott

What is wriggly, made mostly out of water, afraid of the light and can eat a ton of garbage every year?

About a thousand worms, said Cathy Nesbitt of Cathy's Crawly Composters. Nesbitt was at Tecumseth South Public School Feb. 4 to show the kids how to make an indoor composting station, something they will be doing in their school to reduce the amount of waste going into the garbage.

Shouts of "cool, gross, gooey," and "fishing" could be heard in the gym after Nesbitt asked what the group of kids from Grades 3, 4, and 5 thought of worms.

"I thought worms were icky when I first started," Nesbitt told the group of approximately 70 kids. "But they have five hearts, so you have to love them."

Nesbitt showed the kids how to shred newspapers into strips before putting it into the composter for the worms to eat.

"Worms require carbon and nitrogen to live," she explained. "The carbon comes from the old newspapers, straw and leaves while the nitrogen comes from food scraps."

Nesbitt, who has been doing composting for over 10 years, got into worm farming and composting when a friend asked her to look after a crawly composter while on vacation.

"I didn't want to touch them, but then it was kind of cool," she told the crowd.

She said started collecting lunch scraps from the lunchroom at her office in Toronto and bringing them to her Bradford home.

"My whole thing is saving this stuff from the landfill,"

For more information or to contact Nesbitt visit her web site at www.cathyscomposters.com.

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