HONOLULU (KHON2) — A Kaimuki High School teacher and her students are taking the things you normally throw away and turning it into sustainable items.
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The KHS W.O.R.M.S. Club is led by math teacher Chu Hong.
W.O.R.M.S., which stands for “We Offer Rich Moist Soil”, has a mission to create sustainable and environmentally friendly products.
One of those products is vermicompost, also known as worm manure. It’s a rich organic soil amendment containing beneficial plant nutrients.
Hong and her students take scratch paper and trash from classrooms, and they use it to feed worms. The worms then create the vermicompost, which Hong affectionately calls “goop poop sprinkle”.
“I’m a COVID gardener,” said Hong. “I started taking bags of trash home, all scratch paper. And I was amazed at how much I could fit into a little bin and how quickly the worms would eat that and turn it into fertilizer. And I would literally just use that and use it for my garden, and I realized oh my goodness, my black thumb turned green, and I actually think it starts with healthy soil,” she said.
The club, which has now grown to more than 50 students, also makes sludge terminator balls which can be thrown into the polluted Ala Wai Canal to clean it up.
The KHS W.O.R.M.S. sells DIY sludge terminator ball kits for $10, along with viles of vermicompost for $3 on their website KHSWorms.com. Pick up is by appointment or most Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.
All of the proceeds go back to the club.
