Serji’s Travel Blog

With news today focusing on global warming, high gas prices, and how if we don’t do anything soon the Earth will die, there is one hotel in South Africa doing it’s part to take care of the environment.

In South Africa’s Mount Nelson hotel, a high class luxury hotel, has hired someone - or something rather - to take care of all the organic waste at the hotel. 15 centimetres long, the worms, commonly known as red wrigglers or tiger worms.
While composting may not be a new concept by any means, I think it is nice to see a large hotel doing their part to help the enviroment. Since the introduction of the worms and composting to the Mount Nelson Hotel they have managed to reduce waste by 70%!
Their fluid excrement, or “worm tea,” is carefully harvested and used as a prized fertilizer in the hotel’s rolling gardens, where peacocks parade on manicured lawns. Their other by-product, vermicast, is a rich compost.

The worms neutralize harmful bacteria, such as Ecoli, and produce beneficial bacteria while increasing the levels of nitrogen and potassium in the soil elements that help vegetables grow.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.