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| Julia Klein joins ETC Team
| "Go bush, don't get lost and can you take two Malaysian visitors with you?"

After only a week in Australia Julia Klein, our latest Occupational Trainee, accompanied by two visiting Malaysians, headed bush for a 400 km round trip through the wheatbelt area of WA visiting Pingelly, York, Beverley and various locations in the hills of Perth. The energetic young German has joined the ETC for 6 months to study the effect of vermicomposting on compost [i.e. what happens to normal compost when you let worms have a go at it].

Julia has collected biosolid compost samples, which she will analyse, vermicompost and re-analyse in an effort to understand the effect the worms, and associated vermicomposting process, have on the biosolid material.

Vermicomposting is rapidly becoming a key area of research. With so much organic waste on the planet the use of large scale [and small] vermicomposting facilities may have a dramatic impact on the problem. On of the great benefits of vermicomposting [as any keen gardener will know] is the very useful by-products; solid and liquid worm castings.

Julia, from Iserlohn, is completing her German Diploma in Physical Sciences at the Fachhochschule Sudwestfalen [University of Applied Sciences]. She has combined her strong desire to travel to Australia and her studies to undertake this major study at the ETC. Once completed Julia will spend time traveling through Australia. Julia enjoys basketball, volleyball, mountain biking and has very quickly settled in to life on the Murdoch University campus. Keen to immerse herself in Australian culture one of Julia's first comments was "I have never heard so many different accents in one country, there are so many different people here from different parts of the world, it is quite amazing."

Above left: Julia somewhere in the Wheatbelt with straw & right Julia at the Worm Shed.

| more info:

» occupational traineeships at etc
» visit the Iserlohn website
» visit the Fachhochschule Sudwestfalen [University of Applied Sciences]
» info for prospective students
» vermi-group news
» learn about the Murdoch Univ. & St John of God Hospital worm burner project