How to use toilet paper rolls to feed your compost worms
Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
Many people do not have a use for the tube inside of toilet paper rolls. The good news is that you can use toilet paper rolls to feed your compost worms. Like many apartment and indoor vermicomposters, I’m guessing you want to reduce your environmental impact. Using toilet paper tubes can make storing and feeding your worms easier.
Today’s guide will show how you can use typical household recyclables to meal prep for your compost worms.
- Why Meal Prep Worm Food
- Common Items To Use
- How to repurpose toilet paper tubes into worm food
- Total Time Needed :
- Total Cost:
- Required Tools:
- Things Needed?
- Steps to transform waste into worm food:
- Step 1: Collect your toilet paper rolls
- Step 2: Cut & fold the toilet paper roll
- Step 3: Grab your blender
- Step 4: Grab your table scraps
- Step 5: Grab some items for grit
- Step 6: Add some fresh water
- Step 7: Add all ingredients to the blender
- Step 8: Arrange and stuff toilet paper rolls
- Step 9: Fill toilet paper rolls with worm food
- Summary

Why Meal Prep Worm Food
Many people grow frustrated feeding their worms in the early days of composting. It can be confusing to understand how much your worms are eating. This is especially true if you’re adding large scraps.
It can often take days or even a week for these items to disappear.
In the meantime, coffee grounds, carrot peels, and different food odds and ends start to stack up. This can lead to just throwing the kitchen scraps in the trash.
This doesn’t make sense if you’re concerned about your environmental footprint. A recent Forbes article states, “We carelessly waste 40% of our food in the U.S. and 33% globally means there is huge potential to reduce our environmental footprint.”
My composting meal prep method will help you provide consistent amounts of food, easier-to-eat food for your worms and save time and energy. You can take the guesswork out of each feeding. Feed your worms a pre-measured food nugget every day or every other day.
Common Items To Use
Food
When it comes to food items for this recipe, anything that a worm can eat will work. I recommend you give the things a good chop before you add them to your blender. If you continuously add large hard-to-blend items, you will likely burn out your blender in months.
MORE: Complete Worm Food Guide
Paper
I prefer to use paper products as a container for my worm food. Items like toilet paper tubes, egg cartons, and origami folded newspaper all work for this project.
Many say, “The food still has some liquid; it will leak out or absorb and get mushy.”
For that exact reason, I use toilet paper rolls to feed my compost worms. You are adding moisture to the paper product. Then you freeze it, and when it thaws, it is even more accessible for the worms to break down. The paper products add an easily decomposable container for the worms.
There is an additional environmental impact.
A 2017 study examined Kimberly-Clark, which produces and ships toilet paper worldwide. The study found that fewer recycled wood fibers are used to create new toilet paper. According to the survey, the number of recycled items used in 2011 was slightly under 30%. By 2017 recycled materials use had fallen to 23.5%. The total fiber used was recycled, but by 2017 this figure had dropped to 23.5%.
We can always make demands on corporations to recycle more materials. Until then, this method will ensure that at least some paper products do not find their way to a landfill.
How to repurpose toilet paper tubes into worm food
So to get started, you will need a few everyday household items. An empty toilet paper tube, cardboard egg crate, or origami-folded newspaper can be the food holder. The goal is to use these everyday household items to freeze worm food for future use.
Save on cleanup and hassle by making some worm food for weeks!

Total Time Needed :
30
Minutes
Total Cost:
$0
USD
Required Tools:
Things Needed?
Steps to transform waste into worm food:

Summary
So there you have it, how to use toilet paper rolls to feed your compost worms. This method has saved me hours of time and increased feeding consistency. This has made my worm bin easier to maintain as there are no major spikes in bugs or liquid.

When ready to use your toilet paper roll worm food nugget, take it out half an hour before use. This gives them a little me to thaw. Adding the nugget while it is still cold has not been an issue. We dig a little pocket, add shredded paper, and toss in the nugget. As it reaches room temperature, the shredded paper will absorb any additional liquid, and your worms will come to the feast.
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