MSU’s unusual sustainability partner: Red wigglers

Tucked away in a hoop house near the MSU Surplus Store and Recycling Center, 1 million hardworking Spartans are wriggling their way through a mission that’s equal parts humble and heroic. They don’t wear green and white. Instead, these superheroes are red through and through — they’re worms, red wigglers to be exact.

These little creatures, technically called Eisenia fetida, are the stars of MSU’s vermicomposting program. Originally launched by Professor of Horticulture John Biernbaum and now run by the MSU Surplus Store and Recycling Center, the project transforms pre-consumer food waste from campus kitchens into a sustainable soil amendment called Grow Green Vermicompost. And it’s all thanks to the digestive magic of these wriggly workers.

While most earthworms burrow deep underground, red wigglers thrive closer to the surface, feeding on organic material like fruit and veggie peels, coffee grounds and fallen leaves — the very things MSU collects from dining halls, Sparty’s coffee shops and other locations across campus. Before reaching the worms, these scraps are briefly “hot composted” to kill off harmful pathogens and kickstart microbial growth. Why? Because these worms don’t just eat the food waste, they snack on the microbes that grow on it. It’s like a five-star buffet for worms, and they repay MSU by producing vermicompost, a mixture of composted organic material and worm poop, known as “black gold,” in the gardening community.

“We rely on these worms to do the majority of the work for us,” said Julia Haidler, a marketing and sales assistant at the recycling center, who is also the resident worm wrangler. “This is a relatively low effort process for the quality of the product we get at the end.”

Once processed, the vermicompost is available for purchase at the MSU Surplus Store. Used by gardeners, farmers and even MSU’s own Landscape Services team, it’s a powerful, sustainable soil amendment that closes the loop on campus food waste. Think of it as the ultimate farm-to-fork-to-farm cycle.

“Closing the loop has always been the goal of the project, but in the past five years, we have also been able to get more people to use vermicompost by educating them about the process,” Haidler said.

Red wigglers are small but mighty. Just a few inches long, they can eat their body weight in organic matter every day. That might not seem like a lot considering each worm only weighs about as much as a paperclip, but it adds up. Their tiny mouths and powerful guts help MSU divert over 300,000 pounds of food scraps and leaves each year from landfills, where it would otherwise produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

These eco heroes share their hoop house with their cold-weather allies, the white pot worms, who take over composting duties when temperatures drop. And thanks to passive solar heating and a smart “hoop within a hoop” design, the compost rows stay warm and active even in the dead of winter.

The vermicomposting site itself tells a story of renewal. Built on a former coal ash storage site, this brownfield has been transformed into a thriving hub of environmental sustainability and education. With plans underway to double its size, MSU’s worm-powered operation is only just beginning to wriggle toward its full potential.

So next time you sip a coffee at Sparty’s or peel an orange at your desk, take a moment to appreciate the small but mighty Spartans quietly making a big difference, one teeny tiny meal at a time. And if your houseplants need a boost, the worms have just the thing.

Grow Green Vermicompost is available at the MSU Surplus Store, in-store and online for local pickup.