I do love stories like this:

In fact, the greenhouse gases emitted by a large
commercial worm composting plant may be comparable to the global
warming potential of a landfill site of the same scale, according to
the Open University.

Landfill sites produce methane which is 23 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Jim Frederickson, senior research fellow at the Open University’s
faculty of technology, said: "We know from research in Germany that a
third of the nitrous oxide emissions coming from the soil are
associated with worms.

"What we found from
looking at large worm composting systems is that their emissions could
be comparable in global warming potential to the methane from landfill
sites."

Now, because the levels of nitrous oxide released are lower than those of the methane, this does not mean that wormeries are ten times worse for the planet than landfill: only that total emissions translated into CO2 equivalent are about the same.

However, nothing much can be done with the nitrous oxide, it can’t be collected or used. But the methane from a commercial landfill (and since the 2004 Act, it is the law that they must) can be collected and used to generate power. The emissions from this are of course CO2.

So when we look at the whole process, wormeries are in fact 23 times worse for the planet than landfill. And they don’t produce any energy.

Does make one wonder why there is this insitence that we must reduce the amount we landfill, when it is so obviously a benefit in the fight against climate change.