0:00

Have you ever wondered what happens to all that reject produce at supermarkets? It's picked up each morning by this fellow, Dan Holcombe. Dan collects about 5,000 pounds a day of wilted vegetables, bruised fruit and unsold bakery goods. That's a lot to dispose of, but he will be getting plenty of help.

00:37

In North Portland, near a yard-debris collection site, Dan houses his workers -- all six or seven million of them. "There's a good wad right over there."

00:49

They're worms, a kind known as red wigglers, compost worms, or scientifically, eisenia foetida. "Eisenia is a surface dweller; it's not a burrowing worm. The main population stays in the top foot. Because its natural place in the world is in decomposing organics, it's not really an earthworm. If you took this worm and put it out in your garden, it wouldn't survive. But they'll survive in your compost pile, you know, in the cow pie and in decomposing vegetation."

1:26

He mixes the food wastes with composted yard debris. And spreads it across the surface of the bin. The worms go to work, eating their own weight in garbage every day. As the worms digest this stuff, it passes through them to become worm castings, one of the best plant fertilizers there is.

1:52

While the worms stay and eat near the top, their castings accumulate below, eventually falling through the bottom. Dan, with occasional help from the rest of the Holcombe family, gathers the castings to sell.
"I guess worms, they kind of grow on ya. Ya know, you get bit, you're addicted for life."

2:14

Unlike regular composting, in which the decomposing material gets quite hot, this is a cool process. "Temperatures in here never get above 60 degrees. And the worms are doing all the turning and churning continually."

2:28

Yet research shows that even without the heat, the worms destroy many harmful bacteria and may neutralize some undesirable chemicals. And overall, there's remarkably little odor. "The worms themselves actually control the odor. They go through the food waste and they live on the bacteria."

2:50

Jess Kenagy, a Hubbard farmer, also makes a little money from worms. "I'm not getting rich from it, but I am taking care of a waste problem."

3:00

For him, they are mainly a good solution to an ongoing dilemma. A dairy operation houses 350 milk cows in Jess's barn. And cows, of course, produce more than just milk. "Manure is not an asset, it's a liability. And the cheapest thing we can do to get rid of it is the best thing to do, as far as the dairyman's concerned."

2:36

After partially composting the manure with straw, he spreads it out -- on what must be one of the biggest worm beds around: a strip next to the road 1,800 feet long! The worms convert the manure. "Taking Mother Nature's technology ... and putting it to use."

3:53

And every once in a while Jess collects the castings for sale. "I don't use any castings on my field crops, 'cause I can sell 'em."

4:11

Both Dan and Jess sell their worm castings to this company. "There's a great market for it in the nursery and horticulture industry, and then you've got the homeowners and landscapers that want organics in their yard. It's really pretty amazing stuff."

4:40

But, though the market for this product is growing, most worm composting these days is not commercial at all and happens on a much smaller scale than all this. For example, several Portland schools -- this is Fernwood -- use eisenia to dispose of cafeteria food wastes. "It cuts down our garbage, and it's just kind of a science thing that the kids help with. There's our worms. The worm castings we put it on our plants, and our plants are very, very healthy ... "

5:14

But most people who compost with worms are just recycling at home. And since eisenia is not a typical backyard species, many have to buy their starter worms. Enter Elmer and Violet Overgaard. "Usually people come and they want a pound to start a small bin for taking care of their household garbage."

5:36

For the Overgaards, who live in Camas, Washington, the worms themselves are the product. "There's a big one." "There's some big ones." "Oh that was your finger! Ha ha ..."

5:50

Much of their business comes from people new to composting, referred here by the county extension service. "Yeah, we pretty well cover our expenses." "Besides, we get rid of our garbage." "And we get a lot of people to come out." "We get to meet a lot of people." "A lot of interesting people." "This here bedding is a mixture of shavings and cow manure. We put about an inch and a half on top about every two weeks."

6:15

Decades of experiences have made them worm experts. "This is a breeder. You find another one and get them together and after a while they'll do that thing. "They just lap over one another and ..." "Each worm can lay an egg." "I don't know how they make 'em, but they know how."

6:35

Because worms hate light, a small bulb burns under each lid to curb their tendency to "wander." "That's to keep the worms in. They will crawl if they're unhappy in the bin. They'll come out of there and we have seen 'em come right up like a river and over the top." "And here the worms were, coming right up over the side and down -- I mean, they were moving!"

7:00

Elmer and Violet once had 80 active bins of worms.
"That was back in the late '70s ..."

7:07

And they still have some of the high-tech equipment. "It's a worm harvester." "If you have a lot of it to be done -- it sifts the dirt out." "Here they come. They get kinda dizzy coming down there ... Here they come ...

7:38

They quit the business for awhile, but they started back up a few years ago. "This time it's more or less a hobby."

7:46

This time they began with just one pound of worms and a bin. "We got a pound ... about five years ago ... And as they multiplied, we got a whole bin full. Before we knew it …" "We had worms ..." "We had three bins. I don't know why all of a sudden we've got six!" "If somebody wants a pound of worms, we take some of this in and lay it out on a table in there ... and keep scraping the bedding off, keep scraping it back and they keep going down away from the light." "We'll get the pure worm that way." "They don't like this much. I gotta let them get down there. You guys -- lazy! Get down there!" "Yours aren't cleaned off as well as mine are!" "I haven't got around to it yet. There's your pound of worm ... ten dollars, with the bedding there. And then we give about another bag full of fresh bedding, too, to help."

8:36

Just about anyone can recycle with worms -- starting with just a handful of red wigglers, a small plastic bin and some kitchen garbage. But if you prefer to remain wormless, you can still buy the worms' prized product at your local garden supply. And speaking of recycling, it turns out that the biggest sellers of this brand of castings are the very stores that supplied the worm feed in the first place! And just inside the store, over in the produce section, a new batch is just getting started.