On October 14th to 16th, our school Enactus attended 2015 South Africa Enactus and innovation World Cup as China’s representative, and entered the global top 24 among all the teams and d eventually won the third prize Their "Green Future" project focused on the use of vermicomposting method to achieve kitchen waste recycle and reuse. At present, this technology has been used, and farmers, government and enterprise tripartite are working togther on the project.

“Everyday a lot of kitchen waste transported from downtown to suburbs, most of which were processed under traditional approaches such as incineration or burying, resulting in environmental pollution and waste of resource, so we hope to be able to effectively use these kitchen waste”, One of the team member, 2014 Life Science and Technology biological engineering Luo Xuefei talked about the original intention of the senior students who initiated the project.

At present, Guangzhou generated more than 14,000 tons trash daily, of which there are 7,000 tons of kitchen waste. Kitchen waste, which is considered to be the key and difficult during the whole process of waste disposal, the process of it usually ends up with incineration or landfill, producing large quantities of pollutants that led to the land nutrient gradual loss, increased heavy metal content, caused great pollution to the environment.

"Green Future" team try to start the use of earthworms devour kitchen waste and produce organic fertilizer project through researching and consulting experts, out of the purpose of effectively utilizing these kitchen waste.

But there hasn’t been anyone in China that has made this attempt to use vermicomposting technology to turn kitchen waste into organic fertilizers. The first problem they need to solve is the selection of earthworm species.

The Growth of Earthworm requires warm and humid environment，so the team raise earthworms to recording the growth status of different varieties at school north gate after consulting   experts. Guangdong native earthworm digestion ability is weak, the conversion rate of kitchen waste is not high." Remember one night, probably not used to the garbage, earthworms have all gone." Luo Xuefei said. Many experiments had been tested by the team, the ideal species was found- Ohira on the 2nd earthworm from Japan.

In order to obtain adequate kitchen waste as subjects of research, they contacted the school canteen. The kitchen waste contains rich organic matter, if used effectively, it will be good material resources. The school is also very interested in this project, help the team collect canteen kitchen waste for experiment.

Villagers say no to the new technology

After determining the earthworm species, the team encountered new difficulties. Although the Xingfeng village made no objection, but the first car with kitchen waste was stopped by villagers at the entrance of the village. "Because the smell of garbage is too terrible." Luoxue Fei said, "Later, senior students had to leave."

Because the odor problem of kitchen waste have not been able to solved,  the project has been suspended, the problem has become the new team urgent to solve. “Some of the effects of treatment are not good, and some of the cost is too high, after many discussions and experiments, we begin to think about the source of odor." Luo Xuefei said. Because the source of the odor is mainly the oil and salt ingredients in kitchen waste, they decided to use the pre-processing machine separate the solid and liquid waste as much as possible. After dehydration, dehydration of the oil and desalting, the kitchen waste processing capacity from the outset 28% increase to 92% by earthworms and the unpleasant smell is greatly reduced. At present, one kilogram of earthworms can handle one kilogram of garbage a day, and produce mild and clean fertilizer.

Earthworms clean garbage can to help farmers get rich

Experiment has achieved initial results, "Green Future" team also started to promote the application to proceed technology. Since the earthworm compost kitchen waste disposal technology can help to reduce costs and increase efficiency,  Zengcheng District Urban Management Bureau reached made a 3 month agreement with them to help them carry out pilot work. "Communicate with farmers, businesses and governments, and gain their trust, set up tripartite coopera -tion platform to build, is the biggest advantage of this project."Instructor Liu Qian said.In the project, the farm is responsible for providing the experimental field, the enterprise is responsible for providing the earthworm species, the government is responsible for the exchange connection.

The project helped to  all parties involved to achieve the profits as expected. From the farm to our cooperation on the field of farming, the total investment was 23300 yuan, after two rounds of composting, earthworm proliferation 2400kg, and the market value of up to 82500 yuan. Using organic fertilizer plant vegetables, late 350 kilograms per mu yield and the time up to 118500 yuan. As for  the government,  through the earthworm composting,  kitchen waste disposal cost decreased by 79.3%  from 310 RMB to 64 RMB per ton. As for the  company, its income increase 15000 yuan.

Sustainable Development of environment comes first

 "our aim is to create a better world”, said team member Wang Xinyi," economic profit is only a part of it,  the main purpose of using organic fertilizer, which can improve not only the quality of soil,  but also  the quality of crops, is to boost the sustainable development of environment ."

"At present, we make profit through the sale of earthworms, and will apply for patents. We hope that later we can promote the application of earthworm composting technology to more areas. If feasible, we are also going to set up a company to achieve commercial operation."

The only way to deal specifically with Guangzhou kitchen waste Datianshan ecological cycle park, kitchen waste daily processing capacity reached only about 50 tons.

The team was founded in 2013 by the School of International College of Life and Science and Technology, Institute of Technology, School of Journalism and Communication, and other faculties students.