Get a Wiggle On, Falmouth (2026)

12/11/2021

Here is our final review of keeping a worm farm:
- it's low maintenance (just add a few bits of fruit and veg every now and then, you don’t have to measure exactly how much you’re putting in just adapt as you go). It fits easily in a kitchen cupboard and doesn't take up space!
- helps deal with leftovers we can’t eat, has definitely reduced our food waste
- Reduces greenhouse gas emissions so helps slow climate change

Overall, we would highly recommend starting your own worm farm, its super easy and we are looking forward to using the compost we've made in house plants and to grow our own fruit and veg.
To decompose a house of 4 people's waste, you might need a slightly bigger worm farm. Go to our Instagram for a post on this!

Thank you so much for following our campaign. We have loved sharing our worm content with you and are so happy to hear that some of you are setting up your own worm farm now.... you really are making a difference to the climate!

11/11/2021

A REMINDER OF ALL THE BENEFITS WORM COMPOSTING CAN HAVE!

There's a lot of benefits about having these little creatures around so we thought we'd review them here.

1. The JOY of seeing your compost turn into something beautiful and/or tasty. This is a fun and educational experience that the whole family can get involved with.

2. The convenience of having to empty your kitchen bin less frequently. There's also the added benefit that it won't smell like your kitchen bin will!

3. The compost has many benefits to your garden! It will greatly improve soil quality and is better than shop bought. It is also cheaper and always to hand.

4. It's a visual way of seeing the carbon cycle and food break down. Children love it which means it's a great way to blend education and fun.

5. You get to feel good about making a difference! It's a small action but when combined with others reducing your food waste by worm composting can make a big difference to the environment.

We think there's everything to love so why not try it out for yourself?

10/11/2021

UK local council waste collection

A lot of food waste is put in general waste bins. However many local authorities collect food waste, either mixed with garden waste or separate. Let's take a closer look.

In England, food waste is collected from 10.3 million households (6.9 million homes are offered a separate food waste collection and almost 3.4 million have a mixed garden and food waste system). On the other hand, 13.4 million households currently do not have their food waste collected separately from their black bag rubbish. If you live in England you can check your local council website to see if they collect food waste here: www.gov.uk/recycling-collections. The UK government has promised in last year's environment bill that food waste will be collected from every English household by 2023, but this deadline is fast approaching.

If you live in Scotland, you can check your local council's recycling info here: www.mygov.scot/bins

In Wales, all households should get their food waste collected; sometimes this is separate from garden waste, and sometimes it's mixed. You can check Welsh recycling info here: https://walesrecycles.org.uk/what-to-do-with/food-waste-1

In Northern Ireland, all households should get their food waste collected mixed with garden waste. You can check the info here: https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/bins-and-waste-collection

The picture is clearly very complicated regarding food waste collections in the UK. Where we're based, in Cornwall, the council has been planning to introduce food waste collections since 2019, and this still hasn't happened.

If your food waste is collected separately from your general waste, the food will be sent to a composting site. Here it can decompose properly (with oxygen), and emissions are often collected to use as biogas. However, the green bin still has to be collected from your home and taken to a composting site. The heavy transport involved with council bin collections means that emissions are still produced; therefore this also contributes to climate change. Additionally, the benefits that home composting bring to you are lost.

Many households across the UK do not have access to food waste collections, and the slow progress of rolling them out, especially in England, means that home composting is, in our opinion, the best solution.

Sources:
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-02-10/councils-face-rolling-out-food-waste-collections-to-millions-more-homes
https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/cornwall-bin-collection-changes-homes-3506668
https://deframedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/02/10/household-food-waste-to-be-collected-separately-by-2023-and-50000-city-trees-to-be-planted-in-urban-tree-challenge-fund/

10/11/2021

1. If worms eat too much protein, they can appear deformed - this is know as protein poisoning or sour crop.

If worms eat too much protein, they can struggle to digest it. When this happens, the food in the worms intestines can start to ferment due to acidity. The build up of gasses can rupture the worms intestines, causing irreparable damage. This can leave the worms deformed, looking like a string of pearls. In most cases, this situation can be avoided by not overfeeding your worms.

2. Worms have tiny hairs on each segment

Worms have tiny bristles, known as setae, on each segment. The setae help it move through soil and allow the worm to grip the surrounding soil. The setae are very strong and formed from the same material that makes up our fingernails (keratin)

09/11/2021

Where does the cycle of wasting food begin?

It begins when you go shopping and add an item into you shopping basket or trolley. So how do we break this cycle so we can reduce our food waste? We tackle the problem at its source by changing shopping habits!

There are many ways we can do this; we will be talking out the following today:

- Making meal plans, prepping, and shopping lists
- Buying canned or frozen food rather than fresh
- Doing smaller shops more often, avoiding bulk buying
- Growing your own food

Making meal plans, prepping, and shopping lists:

Planning out your meals and writing shopping lists will save you time and money and will also help you avoid buying things that you won’t end up using. Meal plans are also helpful if you have trouble deciding what to eat! Whilst meal prepping is good for those who don’t have much time!

How to plan out your meals:

- Write down ideas of meals you might like
- Look through your cupboards and refrigerator to utilise any
goods that you might have already
- Prepare a shopping list of the exact ingredients for the recipes
you have chosen to make.
- Plan time to prepare the meal, or even just cut up the produce
or meat ahead of time to get it recipe ready

Many supermarkets have online tools that help you plan meals, there are also plenty of apps you can download to help you stay organised with meal prepping, planning, and writing your shopping lists!

Buying canned or frozen food rather than fresh:

Often fresh produce gets bought and only a small amount is used, leading to a large amount of food waste. Buying canned and frozen food is a great option if you often leave eating your fruit and vegetables too late. It is often more affordable to buy canned or frozen produce over fresh too!

- A study by experts at Manchester Metropolitan University revealed that British families reduced their waste by nearly half (47.5%) by eating frozen food.

Doing smaller shops more often, avoiding bulk buying:

Bulk buying may be more convenient, but this shopping method is often linked to producing more food waste. You can avoid buying more food than you need by making more frequent trips to the shop rather than shopping monthly or biweekly.

Growing your own food:

You can reduce the amount you buy at supermarkets massively by growing your own fruit and vegetables. If you have your own garden space there are plenty of easy plants to grow such as, potatoes, peas, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, strawberries and more! If you don’t have access to a garden space, you can still do your part by growing your own herbs and spices in your kitchen!

Sources:

https://www.respectfood.com/article/7-shopping-tricks-you-need-to-know-to-stop-food-wastage/
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/meal_planning_can_improve_health_and_reduce_food_waste
http://cookingmatters.org/tips/10-tips-waste-less-food
https://www.mmu.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/story/7421/
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/reduce-food-waste
https://www.zerowasteweek.co.uk/reduce-food-waste-grow-food/
https://www.thompson-morgan.com/top-10-easy-to-grow-vegetables
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/could_you_cut_your_food_bill_by_a_third
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/BFJ-12-2017-0726/full/pdf?casa_token=cFeety2XrisAAAAA:ZRpc--g7ROUy_yNFRoTV8UQFLGZL-mngJwmsacp6lFLBDwKhnhefnxSJD2G0WqrJfjSlbv6MFrjz8Sc8mkNhtdCnhRCCjfayyWHcH71JTknQ7yN7-lHe

08/11/2021

Wiggly Wigglers are a company which provide the supplies for you to start home composting. We interviewed Heather Gorringe from Wiggly Wigglers, who gives some really useful top tips on worm composting, explains the benefits and misconceptions, and much more! Watch the video for an interesting discussion on composting and why anyone can do it. Check out Wiggly Wiggler’s page which has innovative ideas on home composting and useful products to help you get started. We have linked their page in our linktree, which you can find in our ‘About’ section. Enjoy!

06/11/2021

If you're on campus then there's a great opportunity to get involved with green living society. This is a society that get up to amazing activities connecting with nature and engaging in sustainability. They also have weekly sessions where they use compost to grow fruit and veg in their allotment.

If you want to get to know the committee members and learn more about why they value composting head over to our instagram page (get_a_wiggle_on) and check out our recent post. If you want to know more about the society and how you can get involved, then why not check out their social media pages (greenlivingfalmouth)?

A lot of people have told us that they would like to compost but don't know where to start or can't because they live in a student flat. Well here is a fully set up system that you can join in with. just watch the video to learn more.

05/11/2021

When dealing with food waste, you have several options. It’s so easy to get into a routine and choose the easiest option, but this can be so harmful to the environment. You actually might find that the option you thought was too difficult is really quite achievable!

Option 1
Perhaps the ‘easiest’ way of throwing away your leftovers is just to chuck it in the main household bin. Out of sight, out of mind. What you might not realise is that actually by doing this you are contributing to climate change! This is because food in the main household bin ends up in landfill. Food waste in landfill can’t decompose properly, and so it rots and produces the harmful greenhouse gas methane. This gas is several times more potent than carbon dioxide even, and so when released into the atmosphere it has a severe effect on global warming.

Option 2
Another way of disposing of food waste is by using a green bin. This is better for the environment as if you put your food waste into the green bin, the food will be sent to a composting site. Here it can decompose properly (with oxygen), which won’t produce harmful emissions. HOWEVER…. The green bin still has to collected from your home and taken to a composting site. The heavy transport involved with council bin collections means that emissions are still produced! Therefore this method also contributes to climate change because those greenhouse gas emissions warm the planet.

Option 3
Compost your own waste at home! This is being encouraged more and more, with many local councils stopping green bin collections. Initially in the lockdowns this was due to necessity, and bin collections has been made harder by the recent shortage of lorry drivers. But actually many local councils are realising the environmental benefits of people composting at home, and although it may seem daunting, its actually really simple. We have found that keeping a kitchen worm farm for 4 people is really low maintenance, the worms take care of themselves once it is all set up! Not only are you reducing emissions and so helping the fight against climate change, there are also benefits to you! You can use your compost to grow fruit and vegetables, or for your house plants.

We hope this helped explain the impact of your choices! Check out our linktree for some interesting articles on this.

04/11/2021

Food waste is food that is not eaten. Waste food is one of the biggest issues we face today and, globally, between 33%-50% of all food produced is never eaten. This wasted food racks up a cost of over £1 trillion.

Some shocking facts about food waste:

Around 40% of all food in America is wasted.

1/4 of wasted food could feed all 795 million undernourished people in the world. This reflects how morally wrong it is to have such a high amount of food waste.

6.7 million tonnes of food is wasted by the food industry every year in the UK. That wasted food totals a cost of £10.2 billion each year. Which represents a cost of £250-£400 per household per year.

Over 2 million tonnes of the food that goes to waste each year is edible, that’s enough food for 1.3 billion meals!

Food that is never eaten accounts for 25% of all fresh water consumption globally.

If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the USA.

Sources:

https://olioex.com/food-waste/the-problem-of-food-waste/

https://fareshare.org.uk

https://www.cheaperwaste.co.uk

03/11/2021

Very small size farm - this size is suitable for small amounts of kitchen waste and is a good size farm for people looking to start worm farming. This farm can be stored inside in your kitchen and contains less than 100 worms. A farm of this size can be built in a small box or some plastic/glass food storage containers.

Small size farm - this is suitable for kitchen waste and families of up to 4 people or for flats. This size farm usually consists of 500 worms or less and can be stored inside. Larger plastic boxes and smaller bins make a good storage for these worms.

Medium size farm - this is suitable for larger amounts of kitchen waste and larger families of around 6 people. This size of farm should probably be stored outside as it contains around 1000 worms. Large plastic bins or even a small bath tub will house these worms nicely.

Large size farm - this is suitable for copious amounts of food waste. This farm is too large to store indoors, so store outside and it can contain around 2000 worms. Big plastic bins and large plastic boxes and bath tubs are a good place to store these critters.

03/11/2021

Worm Fact Wednesday again! Go check out our Instagram for two different facts 😁

Fact 1:
Baby Worms Hatch From Cocoons

A mature Red Wiggler worm can produce 2-3 cocoons per week. Cocoons are small, lemon shaped and yellowish gold colored. For Red Wiggler worms, the hatchlings inside the cocoon can take up to 11 weeks to mature before they hatch. Each cocoon usually hatches 2 to 4 baby worms. Cocoons can be dormant for years until conditions are right.

Fact 2:
Worms Are Older Than the Dinosaurs

The first dinosaurs appeared around 231 million years ago in a time called the Mesozoic Era. Earthworms predate all vertebrates in general, and have been around for about 600 million years.

02/11/2021

Let's talk composting... there are more ways to dispose of your waste than worms!

This post will give you some information on the following types of composting:
- Bokashi (Effective MicroOrganisms Composting)
- Hot Composting (Open air composting)
- In-ground Composting (Direct composting)
- Tumbler Composting (A form of hot composting)
- Combination Composting (Compot Composting)

Effective MicroOrganisms Composting:
Bokashi composting is an anaerobic process that relies on inoculated bran to ferment kitchen waste, including meat and dairy, creating a safe soil builder/ nutrient rich food for your plants.

Kitchen scraps of all kinds are mixed with some of the inoculated bran, pressed into the Bokashi bucket, covered with another handful of bran, and tightly covered. When the bucket gets filled up it is sealed shut and put aside for 10 to 12 days (Every other day the leachate needs to be drawn off). When the bucket is opened again, you will have pre-compost! You then add it to your regular compost bin or bury it away from plants (The pre-compost will be very acidic so not safe for your plants!)

Open-air/ Hot Composting:
A hot compost pile can reach temperatures of 49-77 degrees Celsius in just a few days, and if done correctly, you can compost organic matter in around 4 weeks.

The heat produced can also be used to heat your water, home, or greenhouse! (It is important to monitor the temperature though because if it remains at 65 degrees celsius or higher for a few hours or more, the beneficial microorganisms will be killed).

To make a hot compost bin or pile you will need:

- Equal parts green and brown materials, all shredded to a small size. Fresh grass clippings and dried shredded leaves work great for the first effort because they are already small and the grass has a lot of moisture

- A fork or shovel for turning

- A thermometer

- A bin/ container (optional)

How to maintain:

Mix together the green and brown materials well and had in a shovelful of already made compost or soil to jumpstart the process. As you add to the pile, spray with water to keep it moist (the consistency of a wrung-out sponge). The compost pile needs to be around one cubic meter in size. Over the next month, monitor and record the daily temperature of the pile (temperature will depend on moisture levels, the size of your organic matter and the size of your pile). Once the temperature cools to below 43 degrees Celsius, which is usually between four and seven days, you will need to turn over the organic matter to introduce oxygen. This will then heat the pile back up. Keep doing this same process and after one month, you should have turned the pile 4 times. You must let the compost 'cure' for a couple of weeks before using it!

In-ground Composting:

Put simply, in-ground composting works by digging a hole/ trench into the ground and placing a mixture of nitrogen and carbon-rich organic material inside. The hole is then covered with soil and left to decompose!

Unlike hot composting, you do not need to turn or monitor the compost, you can just leave it be.

Tumbler Composting

A compost tumbler is a fully sealed container which can be rotated to mix the composting materials. The sealed container also helps contain the heat generated by the composting process (speeding the composting process!). This type of composting is just an easy form of normal hot composting as you can easily turn the material.

Combination Composting

Combination Composting is similar to in-ground composting except it uses a plant pot too.

You start by digging a hole, you then plant your pot, fill with all your kitchen waste (Including meat and dairy), lock on the lid and cover with anything but dirt.

You can also use it as a worm farm! (you will have to fill it with worm friendly waste only though!).

Sources:
https://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/products/organico-bokashi-compost-kitchen-waste-value-pack
https://directcompostsolutions.com/8-methods-composting/
https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-hot-compost-2539474
https://thrivingyard.com/in-ground-composting/
https://learn.eartheasy.com/guides/compost-tumblers/
https://directcompostsolutions.com/pros-cons-combined-compot-composting/
https://www.planetnatural.com/composting-101/indoor-composting/bokashi-composting/
https://www.permaculture.co.uk/readers-solutions/how-make-hot-compost

Get a Wiggle On

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