One Stamford man is building a business on worms ”“ and it digs a lot deeper than just packaging the squirmy critters in a cup full of dirt.
Earthworm Technologies, founded by Steven Devloo, is a multifaceted business that combines vermicomposting and gardening.
Part of Devloo”™s business collects food waste from customers. The food waste is then treated to remove pathogens and fed to the Eisenia fetida, or “red wigglers,” which turn the waste and other organic material into nutrient-rich compost that is an effective garden fertilizer.
“Red wigglers are top feeders, meaning you can add more waste to the top of the container,” Devloo explained, noting that the compost then rests on the bottom.
“The worms eat the waste and it comes out looking kind of like coffee grounds,” said Devloo, who collects the food waste from paying clients, which helps some cut down their waste removal bills. “We had one customer save $20 per month because after three months, he realized he no longer needed to have the garbage picked up every week.”
When clients sign up for Earthworm Technologies”™ food waste pickup service, they get a special collection bucket and biodegradable bags to hold the scraps. Each spring, the clients get a bag of the worm castings (that”™s what comes out of the back end of the worm) to fertilize their garden.
For gardeners, Devloo has made planting and fertilizing a bed easier with Earthworm Technologies”™ “BloomPucks” ”“ small discs of seeds, worm castings and fertilizers that simply need to be pushed into the ground to plant flowers and herbs.
“They”™re about the size of a nickel and one inch thick,” Devloo said. “You just push it into the ground, water it and it grows. We took all the hassle and stress out of do-it-yourself gardening.”
Packaged in a biodegradable cardboard tube, BloomPucks come in five varieties, with nine pucks in each tube.
“We have the ”˜wingzy”™ and ”˜bumblez”™ BloomPucks, wich attract butterflies and pollinators. We also have ”˜sproutz,”™ which grows parsley, dill and basil,” Devloo said.
Perhaps the most unique is the “sunblaze” BloomPuck, which will grow nine sunflowers in three different colors in a multi-tiered arrangement.
“You plant the three yellow BloomPucks in front; they grow into 2-foot-tall orange sunflowers, then in the middle, the three orange BloomPucks grow into roughly 4-foot-tall brown sunflowers,” Devloo said. “In the back, the three red BloomPucks grow into 5-foot-tall yellow sunflowers.”
Bloompucks are available for sale through the Earthworm Technologies website, and Devloo said he hopes to get them out into distribution channels, including retail locations, within the next year. He said about 100 tubes will fit into a cubic foot of retail space.
After a year in business, Devloo said he is happy with what Earthworm Technologies has done so far.
“I wanted an eco-friendly business that would battle things in society that need to change,” Devloo said. “Right now, food waste goes to landfills, where it rots into methane, which is a worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. There”™s been a movement away from growing small gardens with vegetables, and just the outsourcing of making things in the United States. I wanted to stand for things.”
