Yum! Chow down!

Thousands of earthworms guzzle metric tons of scrap food left over from the tables of the rich and famous at South Africa’s plush Mount Nelson hotel, quietly doing their bit to save the planet.

Cape Town’s oldest and most famous hotel — a pink temple to pampering where visiting celebrities are welcomed by doormen in traditional colonial-era pith helmets — has its own worm farm to help slash waste and, ultimately, tackle climate change.

Up to 15 cm (nearly 6 inches) long, the worms, commonly known as red wrigglers or tiger worms, are housed in specially-designed crates and fed vegetable leftovers from the kitchen and pricey restaurant tables.

Their fluid excrement, or “worm tea”, is carefully harvested and used as a prized fertilizer in the hotel’s rolling gardens, where peacocks parade on manicured lawns. Their other by-product, vermicast, is a rich compost.

Organic waste on rubbish dumps releases carbon dioxide and methane, greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, adding to global warming.

“Methane is particularly bad because it has about 20 times greater affinity for heat than carbon dioxide,” said environmental scientist Roger Jacques.

The worms prevent this by devouring the waste and turning it into stabilized organic matter.

None of this is new technology — or knowledge. Sometimes it takes the urgency of realizing resources are finite to push people into doing something sensible.