By Gavino Chachalo y Maria Patricia Tinajero
What is an e-worm? Is lumbricina or commonly know as earthworm. Why do we call it e-worm? Because worms are associated with many parasites that are harmful to humans, but by adding the letter e at the beginning of the word, we want to linguistically reclassify the identity and the function of the worm in contemporary urban culture. The sound of the prefix e gives the word a new meaning that is social and psychologically accepted; after all we all have an e-mail account.

Additionally, the letter e refers to economy and ecology. Two buzz words in contemporary culture, as we strive to a more sustainable existence between human economies and environmental impact. Economy and ecology share the Latin root οίκος, meaning home; therefore Thinking Like an e-worm is a project about taking everyday actions to learn about the tied connections between economy and ecology.
The project started in our home in Quito, Ecuador. We start by composting our food scraps by bacterial fermentation. This research let us to worms for speeding up the composting process, as well as to increase the quality of the compost. Now we need more food scraps to feed the hungry e-worm. We are asking our neighbors to be part of this project by keeping their food scraps. People are intrigued by what we are doing so we want to teach them about gardening, composting and e-worms. If you like our project, we would use the funds in two ways: 1.) a roof to cover our e-worm tanks and 2.) buckets for food scrap collection from our neighborhood. We are also designing a web site to make our process available to more people that might think that because they are living in big metropolitan areas they have no choices for their food supplies.