Worm Bin Composting and Chlorinated H2O

Category: Worm Bin Composting | Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 5:27 pm

I had this question come up on one of my other blogs and thought I might address it here as well.

Our water and our food are very much affected by the environment from which it is gathered. Hense you have the environmentalists harping on all sorts of environmental factors that affect our air and water qualities. There is so much more than meets the eye here. The bigger picture is huge!

Have you ever given much thought to where your water comes from? Maybe you feel safe because your water comes from a well. But where does that water come from? Where I live, we are very aware where our water comes from. There are many lakes and rivers that are directly affected by a shortage or abundance of the source of our water. Ultimately, all our water comes from the sky, mostly in the form of rain or snow. It falls picking up whatever is in the air, and percolates through the ground. It runs off into our streams and rivers and into our lakes. And that which does not make it into our lakes, and ultimately into our oceans as well, adds to our water tables. These are great underground lakes that many municipalities use for their domestic water source. There is much that could be said about how we are messing with all our water sources with our lifestyles, and daily decisions. But for now I will remember I am writing about worm bin composting and leave it at that.

My own domestic water comes from the water table that exists directly under where we build our houses, businesses and industry. Periodically , the powers that be make the decision to chlorinate our water. The reason being that their tests have come back indicating that there is something harmful in the water that needs to be killed.

Now let's get back to the worm bin. If you will remember I have said that the bacteria in worm poop is what makes it such a valuable soil amendment. (If I haven't mentioned this I will be and for now you can take my word for it) An abundance of bateria are what you are looking for in a worm bin composting environment because the bacteria are breaking down the food source for the worms and the worms are eating the bacteria and the broken down food and passing it through their gut where it is picking up more bacteria and then, well, then you have the castings...poop.

So, with that said do you think the addition of chlorinated water would be a good thing? I think not. In short, the best thing to do for your water before you use it is to let it sit out for 24 hours for the chlorine to dissipate. Then it is safe to use.

WW

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zuzu's petals wrote on Sun Feb 04, 2007 5:55 pm:

Wow, that's a really interesting point,
and something that I'd have never thought of.

Thanks WW

aloes wrote on Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:20 pm:

The same goes for water that is meant for fish in the aquarium. If you are very thirsty :-D heating water gets rid of chloor quickly.
We have the problem in South Africa that if the underground water in coastal areas are pumped out to a certain level the sea water will seep in and destroy a whole underground freshwater lake. Fresh water is precious