WHEN Glenn Smith starts peeling vegetables for the Sunday roast, he knows there are several hungry mouths waiting to gobble up the waste.

The councillor and software engineer has a colony of worms - with a taste for banana skins - waiting at the bottom of the garden.

It turns out Glenn is a closet green activist, and his daughter Zara, three, likes nothing more than seeing how the wormery is getting on.

"She loves seeing the worms, especially when they are eating banana skins," he said.

"It is the one thing they really go for, and minutes after you put one in they have swarmed all over it."

It might not conjure up a pretty image, but the waste recycling forms an important part of the Smith's green household.

"It was my wife Helen who first got me recycling, and I learned how important it was," he said.

"When Zara was born I started thinking about the future and my responsibilities, and conservation seemed an important part of it.

"We started to recycle a lot more of our household waste, and it means now we only produce one and a half bags of rubbish a week."

That figure is down from an average of three bags before Zara was born, and the wormery and compost heap play a big part.

Glenn said: "I bought the wormery about a year ago, and it was very simple to install.

"You are given a supply of special worms and after a few months they settle down and you can put most food waste in.

"It doesn't create any smell because the worms only want to eat food that is rotting.

The fresh stuff obviously doesn't smell.

"There are positive by-products too because the worms produce a nutritious waste that can be put on the garden, as well as a fertiliser liquid for plants."

Glenn, who also represents Covingham and Nythe on Swindon Council, bought his wormery from the website wigglywigglers.co.uk.

It is based at a farm in Herefordshire, which also produces a regular green podcast.

He said: "I listen to it whenever I have time, because it has a host of tips on recycling and waste reduction.

Much of what they say is very easy to do, and it can make a big difference in the long term."

See our Time to Change section