Human Hair Vermicomposting, part 1
In mid June, I decided to experiment and see if I could create worm castings, a valuable product, out of human hair and used paper towels. The hair came from my barber shop, and the used paper towels were from my office. For my bin, I bought a 10 gallon rubber maid bin, drilled holes in the top and bottom. I wetted down the towels, tossed the hair in and dragged towels over it. I also added some melon rind, to give the worms some good food to start with.
Finally, I separated out enough worms to fill half a quart container. Here was my separating setup:
Setup for separating worms from their bedding.
It took about 45 minutes to separate the worms in the picture above. For reference, the trowel in the picture is 11 inches long.
Since I was using excess worms from my bin, my plan is to let the worms eat the hair and turn the entire bedding to castings, and perish. My investment in time and money was minimal, and both bedding and feedstock were free. If the worms turn the materials into castings, this setup could scale quite quickly. This is a summer only option for me, since these bins are water tight, but won’t keep the worms insulated in the winter.
I check on the worms periodically. As of early September, the worms are still going strong. The environment is a bit soggy, which I dealt with by leaving the bin lid ajar, and there’s still plenty of hair and paper towels. The melon rinds have almost fully decomposed, and the worms are spread throughout the bin.
As of late September, the worms are still doing their work, slowly. The hair is there clearly, but the worms are present in it. I’ve added some more wet newspaper and towels to the mix. The bottom is kinda wet, but the whole bin smells fine.
I will update as the decomposition progresses. When the weather turns cold, I may have to dump everything into the compost bin or bring it inside.
1 comment October 4th, 2008
