In the beginning, David Witzeneder tried it secretly in the park. He had just moved to the city from the Lower Bavarian countryside, he liked his new home in Vienna but not its waste system. Just throw your organic waste in the bin with everything else? A life without compost was unimaginable for him. So he buried potato peelings and apple cores in the park next to the university in the hedge. It made more sense to him than burning the rubbish. “Even then it was clear to me: It’s illegal and not a solution for everyone.” Shortly afterwards, when he was talking to a friend about his problem, he had an idea.
“Since then there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t dealt with worms,” says Witzeneder, 34. “They simply offer a great many possibilities that can help us with environmental issues.” Today, eight years later, he is the managing director of “Wormkiste”. He makes a living from mainly selling boxes and the earthworms that go with them, which are used to make compost from organic waste. The Austrian company is one of many start-ups dealing with organic waste.
In households fell according to the Federal Statistical Office 2020 in Germany about 14.4 million tons of organic waste. That’s almost a quarter more than in 2010. The total amount of organic waste is even higher, because almost 40 percent of what ends up in residual waste bins is according to an analysis by the Nature Conservation Union also organic waste. The problem: Many don’t just throw away the rubbish in the wrong way. Instead, 11.4 million people live in Germany in areas where no organic waste disposal is offered at all.
Organic waste is also unpopular: it stinks quickly and attracts fruit flies. It can – properly disposed of – not only be used particularly well by professional suppliers, for fertilizer or biogas. In contrast to plastic or residual waste, private individuals can also use it.
There is great untapped potential in old pasta and pumpkin skins: less organization to get rid of something, less CO₂ emissions because distances are saved and lower expenses because fertilizer or electricity are replaced. “It’s just in line with the zeitgeist to try to produce your own energy,” says Yasmin Olteanu, who researches sustainability business start-ups at the Borderstep Institute. If people put up insect hotels on their balconies and install solar panels, it’s not far to their own mini organic waste system.
And so, in recent years, countless start-ups have emerged with goals similar to those of David Witzeneder: offers to make something useful out of your own organic waste. There was a crowdfunding campaign for a mini kitchen composter called Lomi. Stuttgart founders have developed a composting machine that started under the name Kalea, is now called “Soilkind” and whose main investor is the cleaning machine manufacturer Kärcher.
In Israel, the company Home Biogas has developed a biogas plant for private use. Munich students started a similar project and won the Plan B business competition with their idea under the title Eco Mates. They are currently producing a first system that private households can use to process 25 to 100 kilograms of organic waste per week into biogas, which is fed directly into the house’s heat supply. The founders promise up to 3250 kilowatt hours per year.
Organic waste founders are dependent on friends, family and government funding
All this sounds promising, but the practice of organic waste start-ups is often difficult. For one, they face the same problems as many green startups. Overall, awareness of environmental issues and, in particular, waste issues has grown in the start-up industry, says scientist Olteanu. “That’s because garbage is one of the big levers in terms of environmental issues,” says Olteanu.
At the same time, when it comes to start-ups in the garbage sector, the swimsuit made from collected sea plastic is still the better-selling story. “Organic waste gets less attention there,” says Olteanu. In the sustainable sector there are fewer business angels who have already earned so much with an environmentally friendly idea that they can support young people. And especially for domestic exploitation, the same problem applies as for all technology-based green start-ups: “The higher capital requirements and the longer development times that many green start-ups have make financing more difficult.” They were therefore dependent on part-time jobs and state subsidies.
In the new series “Die Müllionaire” the SZ explains the ways of waste – and who earns from it.
(Photo: SZ)
The Eco Mates from Munich are currently financing their pioneering work themselves; they hope to receive an Exist grant for the transition phase to the pilot product in winter. And David Witzeneder also financed his worm box himself from the start, in the first few years he only paid himself 500 euros a month.
He first wrote a thesis on the topic of worms as organic waste helpers as part of his agricultural studies. “I still thought I was the only one with the subject,” he says. Then he held workshops on building worm boxes at the university. When they were always fully booked, he founded a GmbH in 2015. The fact that he employs twelve people today also has something to do with luck: when everyone was sitting at home during the pandemic, they were not only concerned with how their four walls could be made more beautiful. But often also with what they could do for the environment. “Many have ordered the self-assembly set and first built the boxes together with the children and then fed the worms,” says Witzeneder. Now he earns his living with it.
“As a rule, there is someone in every household who has concerns”
Still, it wasn’t easy. And not just because of pandemic-related delivery problems and financing difficulties. But because many customers are skeptical: worms on the balcony, or, as with one of his models, even in a stool in the apartment? “As a rule, there is someone in every household who has concerns,” is his experience. And then the disgust stings the will to live more sustainably.
He tries to counter the resentment with a positive narrative. When he talks about the box, it’s about the worms that need to be fed. When he advertises it on his website, he also states that the crate can simply be a beautiful piece of furniture, with a fabric-covered seat cushion, “Haf of Leaves” pattern. The competition tries to avoid any disgust: an activated carbon filter is built into the Soilkind composter, which is supposed to prevent something from smelling. A shredder is also built into this system and that of Eco Mates – so that customers don’t have to chop up the leftovers that they want to throw away beforehand.
The first customers are expected to test their devices with the Eco Mates in the first quarter of 2025. From February 2024, the first Soilkind composter will be available for sale, designed for ten kilograms of organic waste per week. There are now more than 40,000 of the worm boxes, mainly in Austria. All this is not yet a garbage revolution. “But with the electric cars, it also took a certain lead time, that’s always the case,” says Witzeneder.
Scientist Yasmin Olteanu is convinced that all this is already having an effect on the environment. She thinks it is unlikely that the broad masses of the population will use their eggshells and bananas themselves in the future. And yet word is slowly getting around. Witzeneder has set up five worm hotels in Vienna. Many people there now take care of the animals and the garbage together. Two more are planned. And during the last state visit to Iceland, the Austrian State Secretary presented: two worm boxes.