An Indoor Worm Condo That's Fast, Cheap, and Good by MCR Dan K.

I have used a medium-sized indoor "worm condo" for many years. It works very well and holds quite a lot of compost. However, it can't keep pace with the organic waste my family produces, and it's an expensive system -- two additional trays cost about $70.

Worm Factory (c) 3 Tray System by Nature's Footprint

For a bigger and less expensive system that can help us compost our kitchen scraps faster, I'm going to try making a bigger condo from IKEA Trofast storage containers. 

This great idea comes from Jules Yap at IkeaHackers and will cost only $17.50 new for the pieces I need. They are readily available at IKEA in Edmonton and may be found used on Kijiji and your friendly neighborhood garage sale.

Here's what I'm going to use:

• (1) medium-sized, deeper container for the base to catch the leachate. 
• (3) small, shallow containers to stack inside each other above the base container. (More could be added, but three seems like a good start.) Drainage and worm access holes will be drilled in the bottom of each one.
• (1) lid for the topmost container. It's not strictly necessary, but if you don't want an open compost container in your house, a lid is nice.

Screen capture, courtesy IKEA.com

After I get my new worm highrise assembled next to my old condo I'll do a followup post to show how it works out.

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Dan is a freelance web developer and father of four relatively efficient, non-wasteful young women. Originally from New York, Dan moved to Edmonton in 2016 and joined the MCR Program straightaway to influence peple to let worms eat their garbage. Waste reduction tip: If you can get food and paper out of your trash, you may find you have very little garbage going to the curb every week.