Discovery Channel in Worm Poop

This was truly crazy. TerraCycle is lucky in that every week we seem to have a TV crew walking through our factories. But this crew took the cake for being... adventurous. The shoot started at the Rutgers University Eco-Complex, which is a very high tech greenhouse setting.

Our host (seen in the photo) decide to eat on of the red worm on film. We tried to warn him, but it was too late. I don't think that he fully expected the pungent taste of red wigglers. As a brief background, there are two major types of worms that live in the soil: surface dwelling worms and burrowing worms. The typical worms that we see on the sidewalk when it rains are the later. They are relatively big and have strong bodies - hence the capability to burrow. The other form of worm (i.e. our red wigglers) can't burrow. Instead they eat the material that falls down from the plants and tree and make brilliant worm poop. Here's the catch, as their defense mechanisms they taste horrible. I know from there shear fact that if you hold them they get scared and excrete a mucus on your hand that smells atrocious and takes days to wash off. So there we had it, our young discovery channel host ate not one, but two worms... the sound was off on the first shoot and they asked him to redo it. It's truly brave to do it the second time since you know what's coming.

So to top it off after the light worm snack the crew came up to our Trenton, NJ bottling plant where we were brewing some worm poop fertilizer. He decided that he was going to take a swim in one of our tanks. With his bathing suit and goggles he jumped right in.

Two firsts for TerraCycle all in one day!