Vivian Kingo Hansen is in a slippery situation.
Being the owner of an abundance of compost worms, Hansen is looking to get rid of them sooner rather than later.
This is usually a fairly simple process for Hansen, but it has now evolved into quite the social media debacle.
“Facebook shut down my ad, because worms are animals … And you can’t post animals on Facebook to give away,” said Hansen.
She appealed the ban, but the social media giant wouldn’t budge.
This resulted in her going to Ecology North, where she was a part of the organizations 2021 Waste Reduction Week (which took place Oct. 18 to 24).
“I was like; ‘can you guys help me out?, because I have too many and I want to get rid of them’,” she said.
As for how Hansen became involved with the wiggly creatures, that goes back to around six years ago.
“My daughter was working for an environment office of some sort … and she was doing the worm project with children in school, like compost worms.” said Hansen. “She was introducing that to little kids in daycares and schools.”
“She had this Rubbermaid container with these little red wigglers, (and) she would bring this things home,” she continued. “And I was freaked out about it. Then she moved, like to Ottawa, and this worm bucket stayed.”
Hansen said she’s had the worms (through their various generations) ever since.
“So I keep feeding them and got used to them,” said Hansen. “I got smart. I dumped that bucket in my black composter.”
“I dumped them in, because I didn’t want to deal with these ones all summer, so in the spring I dumped them in there,” she continued. “I go, “well, they’ll have fun in there and they eat all that stuff up.” And they did.”
The worms, which originated in South America, are then brought in during the the winter. It was then that Hansen decided to hand them off to those interested “because now they’ve multiplied quite quickly in a four to five month period.”
“So in the fall, I tip this thing over and I collect all this dirt and I go into my cleaning house and I separate it … and I save the worms,” she continued. “So then I have all these worms, like millions of them.”
“Then I put it on Facebook that I have worms to give away … and then I started the project again,” Hansen laughed.
Hansen has continued to do this, but (as mentioned at the top) she is finding difficulty in trying to give the worms away.
For those interested in obtaining some worms, you can reach reach out to her at vivian.kingohansen@hotmail.com
