The worms eat the food discarded from the cafeteria preparation areas (which otherwise would have gone to a landfill). They also devour cardboard and brown paper towels.  Here Takao Yamazaki, an SMC student worker, is preparing their “breakfast” cardboard.

Sam Martin, custodian at SMC, combines food waste with cardboard in a special grinder to make the worm food.  The worms turn it into high nutrient fertilizer.  Gardeners have found that plants fertilized with worm “castings” are more resistant to white flies.