SAN DIEGO - Legoland California and Donovan State Prison are located at opposite ends of San Diego County and have completely different social structures, yet they have some things in common.
Both places serve food fresh made and appealing at Legoland and drab but nutritious at Donovan. The similarity is in how both places dispose of the left-over food waste.
It's the same way nature has been digesting organic waste for millions of years - with earthworms. They're improving the ecosystem instead of sending it to a landfill.
"This will be good for the environment in the fact that we are not using fossil fuels by taking food waste we're currently producing to a dump or another facility. It's staying on sight," said Bryan Pastor with Legoland.
The short term goal is to have the earthworms eat 20 tons of food waste a year. Twenty tons that won’t be carried off in big diesel trucks and dumped and be converted into earthworm castings.
Castings are a valuable soil additive that can be used in the parks gardens, decreasing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
"At Legoland California, we’re doing what we can to keep all of our fossil fuels and carbon footprint to an absolute minimum," Pastor said.
"It's like a sea of worms in there," said Ross Lee with Donovan State Prison. "We have a crew of inmates that feed the worm rows here. The worms do all the work."
At the state prison, the food waste is more slop like, but the worms love it. After one year, the earthworms are already eating 2 tons of food waste a month and within another year should be eating all the food waste the prison produces.
That’s the real beauty of vermin composting - earthworms eat 24 hours a day and can eat their weight everyday.
