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I'm using african nightcrawler worm and I've been thinking whether all kinds of dust can be put in vermicompost. For example:

  1. Household dust
  2. Dust when I cleaned my laptop, computer or electric fan.
  3. Dust from outside of my house (Includes sand, dust from house construction)
  4. Etc.
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The aim of creating worm compost is to create something useful for your plants from kitchen waste. Most dust is dirt blown in from the street etc, with a small amount of dead skin cells. So, we have a not very nutritious mixture which won't kill your worms, but won't help them much either. Ground up egg shells are a better form of grit to use for the worms.

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All of the books or articles I've read say that vacuum cleaner contents should not be used as composting. I'd hazard a guess that this shouldn't either, as it would mainly be the same. Worms generally have a preference to process organic material like kitchen scraps. Wormfarmfacts.com have a good page of care of these critters.

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  • I read differently, and you can or should use your vacuum cleaner contents on the compost pile. Most of it is organic or dirt, unless you have nylon carpets. Remember that top soil is continually being lost, and some of that ends up as dust in the air. – Graham Chiu Mar 4 '16 at 21:59
  • There will also be noxious pathogens and particles that are harmful from street dirt, which makes its way into homes from shoes, clothes etc. Cement particles and particulates from tyres for instance. These may be ok for a municipal composting scheme as the temperatures these get to are very high. Home composters will only get warm by comparison and pathogens won't be destroyed by these methods. – user13638 Mar 4 '16 at 22:44
  • Sorry, that's nonsense. This stuff is blowing into your garden all the time anyway. – Graham Chiu Mar 4 '16 at 22:50
  • I think we're getting away from the question here. Which is regarding what dust to put with worms and that is recommended in all of the literature I've had access to - to be none. Hence my reply in that worms are recommended to be given a diet of organic matter and not dust. – user13638 Mar 5 '16 at 8:52

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