A CASUAL observer gazing down from a City building may view a long, slow procession of bustling ant-like creatures going about their chores.

But the creepy crawlies are not confined to the streets. Thousands of wriggly creatures have found their way into the offices of big businesses such as HSBC and Aviva, which are seeking to boost their green credentials by installing wormeries to consume their canteen waste.

Business has never been so good for the suppliers of wormeries, whose trade is beginning to lose its obscurity. One of the largest, Wiggly Wrigglers in Herefordshire, has a turnover of more than £2 million a year.

Heather Gorringe said that when she set up the company in 1990 she was laughed at because the idea of worms devouring and breaking down organic kitchen waste was unheard of. The redworms — Eisenia fetida, to give them their proper name — convert the waste into worm castings which can be used as a fertiliser.

“We struggled for several years in terms of profit and also growth,” she said. “Our business is [now] growing at over 20 per cent a year.” Although Wiggly Wrigglers sells other products, worms account more than half of the turnover.

Most of her customers are private individuals but she also supplies worm composting kits to council offices, schools, museums, including the Natural History Museum, and, increasingly large companies such as HSBC.

“That’s definitely an increasing market,” she said of the latter category. “That’s grown quite radically over the last 12 months.”

Jim Frederickson, an environmental scientist at the Open University, said: “It saves companies a fortune, especially with commercial waste, if they can treat it on their premises and not have to landfill this material. The world of worms is getting bigger, there’s no doubt about that.”

HSBC’s Mariner House office in the City, which houses its institutional fund service providers, keeps a worm composting kit in the basement.

Adrian Bailey, chairman of the environmental committee that bought the kit two years ago, said that the committee wanted to raise awareness of environmental issues. The worms are fed food waste from the office canteen, which caters for 750 staff. A spokeswoman said the bank may consider worm composting on a wider scale.

According to the City of London Clean City Awards team, there are also worms in the Aviva building, opposite Lloyd’s of London. The first City firm to bring in worms was Swiss Re, which has since cancelled its scheme.

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