There’s a growing demand for composted materials in the City of Buffalo, for gardening and urban farming. As advocates and businesses build the movement from the dirt up, one local man is creating compost with a little help — from thousands upon thousands of worms.
Myles Stubblefield operates K9 Vision, a Town of Tonawanda based dog training and wellness center. Within the same facility is his other venture, Buffalo Worm Works. The latter was born after Stubblefield sought a solution for disposing the dog feces that was created by his other business.
He did some research on composting, and began the practice. And it worked, to an extent.
“At scale, with dozens of dogs a day, it's still added up,” Stubblefield said. “We ended up still knowing that our garbage cans are so heavy, a lot of that waste still ends up in the landfills. So we started to do some more research. And that's when we discovered worms.”
Vermicomposting is the use of worms to help break down waste and create fertilizer. The worms help break down food waste, mulch and other materials put together in boxes and piles.
When animal waste is part of the process, there is first the matter of eradicating potentially dangerous pathogens before the worms may be utilized. Dr. Joshua Wallace, with the Department of Chemistry at the University at Buffalo, says you need to first let the composted materials sit for a few days. Bacteria already present within the pile handle this important step.
“What we need to do there, is make sure that there's sufficient nutrients in the compost pile for the bacteria that are going to be doing the degrading, to heat up to a temperature that is high enough that's going to kill the pathogenic bacteria. That usually requires about 145 degrees Fahrenheit, over the course of four to five days,” Wallace said.
Stubblefield says he uses a secondary and tertiary process to help break down dog waste into a mulch. Once it becomes mulch, then it is fed to his worms.
“We're still in very experimental phase. It's only been about two or three years,” he said. “We're trying to turn the process and about six to eight weeks. However, with pet waste, it takes a little bit longer to maintain those higher temperatures and durations. So safely, we say, almost about 12 to 14 weeks for a turnover.”
As he showed off some of the many bins where his worms were active, Stubblefield noted that one might notice the lack of a foul smell. Wallace notes that when one has the right amounts of nitrates and carbon components in the mix, one will have a dirt smell but not the pungent foul odor you would usually pick up from untreated animal waste.
That is one of the benefits of vermicomposting when converting waste for reuse.
“It definitely has a lot of advantages over simply spreading the animal waste or manure over the field. You don't have to worry about issues with runoff and contaminating the local water table or, you know, the water streams that kind of are around the place where you're doing the composting,” Wallace said.
Stubblefield gets some of his materials from Farmer Pirates, a co-operative that processes its own large compost piles in Buffalo’s East Side. It was created ten years ago by urban farmers who previously acquired compost from outside the city, but realized there were plenty of available materials within the city.
Co-owner Terra Dumas says their operation includes collecting materials from their members.
“We sign you up, you pay your yearly fee. And we come, we give you a bucket and compostable liner,” Dumas said. “We have a great new app so you can find out what's compostable with us and what's not. And that's it. You just fill up your bucket and every two weeks we come by and empty the bucket for you, and leave you a new liner. You don't have to be home. It's very, very simple.”
Dumas says they recognize many on the East Side cannot afford to pay to have compost materials picked up. They’re talking with the city about possible drop-off programs as an option.
Stubblefield shared his story about worm farming during the April recording of NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” in Buffalo. While it drew some laughter during the program, he is serious about composting and the role he believes Western New York could have as a leader in the practice.
“I think not only by location, location, location, are we in a place with an infrastructure that can support massive compost efforts and initiatives across the city, but it is actually pretty simple,” Stubblefield said. “We're just now scratching the surface. We're really excited to learn more as we experiment. But right now, we're just getting people to compost their food waste, composting your food waste at an individual level, at a dwelling, at home, at a commercial restaurant, or even at a municipal scale or institution. It’s going to be vital, very vital to our sustainability and soil health in the region.”
