THIS IS AN OLD STORY BUT A GOODY
First Posted: Tuesday September 2, 2008
It’s a frightening concept: the average Australian produces about one ton of waste.
Good news is, the average Lismore resident has cut their waste down to about half that. How?
It all began at the beginning of the millennium, when Lismore City Council began desperately encouraging residents to cut down on garbage used in landfill.
Considering how much of our waste comprises food and garden materials (the average Australian’s domestic waste comprises 30% is food materials and about 25% garden), Council wanted to effectively break down its domestic waste.
The best way to do this is to encourage everyone to use a compost bin and a worm farm. But Lismore City Council is special, with many special residents. One guy, named Nick Try, thought it’d be a better idea to build a worm farm for the whole town: the biggest worm farm in the southern hemisphere.
The Tryton Organic Recycling Facility was constructed in 2000, comprising one of earths largest compost worm colonies. Fortunately for Tryton, Lismore residents are a compliant lot: they’ve been very good with sorting their trash each week (separating plastics and glass bottles from packaging, food and organic matter etc) and putting it in the right recycling bins.
To think: anything once living in Lismore has ended up here, in this multi-million dollar complex of climate-controlled greenhouses: a simmering shed of broken down fruit, vegetables, paper, bread, meat, human hair, tea bags, vacuum cleaner dust… YUM!
To give you an idea of the size of this thing - the sheds occupy an area larger than a football field.
“This facility converts domestic food and garden recyclables into valuable composts and extracts for sale back to the farming community,” says worm farm tour conductor, Leo McLean (pictured here with the worms).
According to Leo, when the worm farm reaches its full potential, it’ll be the biggest worm farm in the Southern Hemisphere, with the capacity to house up to 100 million worms.
“At the moment, the farm is only working at around 10% of its capacity. We’re housing a colony of about 80 million worms… about a third of its potential,” says Leo.
Tryton is now suppling to the general public, primary producers and a network of distributors throughout Australia. We talk business. “Sales are dependent on customers… the adoption rate of our organic matter products is increasing but sales are heavily dependent on weather conditions,” he says.
“Most of the people using the compost and the fluid compost (ie the customers) are conventional farmers, but Mum and Dads also buy the compost. Some travel from as far as the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast or even Western Australia for our fluid compost,” says Leo.
“They use it primarily to speed up the decomposition of organic matter or to improve their soil… the worms transform some of the composts into certified organic vermicompost, potting mix additives, cream vermicaste, biological compost tea and liquid humate fertilizers.
“People generally take it by the trailer, ute or truckload,” said Leo. “We mostly target food producers, wheat and cotton growers. But demand is low because of the drought. I think a lot of farmers are waiting for rain to return before they can really do anything with their soil,” he says.
He says you can’t get anything like Tryton Worm Gold anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere.
“The community of growers who now adopt these organic products include horticulture, agriculture, nurseries, turf and hydroponic production, and they’ve faired better as a result,” says Leo.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest worm farm, the organic recycling facility is open weekdays. Call Leo on (02) 6622 8855.
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Recycling efforts not wasted – Northern Star
Peter Weekes 20th May 2010 8:00 AM
THE amount of rubbish going into Lismore’s landfill has not substantially changed since 1996, with an increase in recycling programs stopping an additional 25,000 tonnes a year being dumped.The recently introduced ‘self-sorting’ of recyclable goods at the Lismore tip has seen a further 5 per cent increase in recycling, putting Lismore City Council – along with only two other NSW councils – in reach of meeting State Government requirements ... “We won’t get there – no council will – but we will be close,” a waste services officer told a council workshop on Tuesday night ... Also doing their bit for the environment are the 60 million red wriggling and tiger worms at the Triton Organic Recycling facility, or worm farm, which is currently undergoing renovations ... Opened with great fanfare in 2001 by former premier Neville Wran, the worm farm at the Lismore tip is the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, and one of the largest in the world... click her to read more
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Lismore's 'first in Australia' organic reprocessing Editions > 2000 > December
Former NSW Premier, Neville Wran, recently launched Lismore's 'first in Australia' organic reprocessing facility. Neville Wran is the Chairman of the Tryton Group, the company contracted to process Lismore's organic waste into soil conditioner and fertilizer.
"Lismore's weekly kerbside pick up of all food scraps, garden waste, paper and cardboard has not been attempted anywhere else in the southern hemisphere," said Lismore City Council General Manager, Ken Gainger.
"Our model has worldwide implications for the ongoing problem of decreasing landfill."
A massive worm farm will convert the organic material collected from Lismore residents into worm castings and liquid for resale.
Other Local Government authorities throughout Australia do offer an organic pick up service, but Lismore has the only service that includes food scraps. Accordingly, Lismore has received numerous inquiries regarding the development and implementation of the service.
"Our pioneering work puts us in a position to offer a regional solution to the environmental problems associated with landfill," Ken Gainger said.
"We now have the expertise to assist other Councils with the disposal of their organic waste."
The City's weekly organic service means that around 53 percent of material formerly called 'waste' is now being converted into a 'resource'.
"This significantly reduces the amount of rubbish being buried at our tip, extending its life and improving overall environmental performance," he said. ...
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