Since its inception three years ago, Project Earth Grow has been successful in more efficiently turning food waste from University dining commons into a wealth of campus beautification opportunities. Each new step taken in the program at University Park has yielded bigger aspirations and larger pilot tests in pursuit of the ideal way to recycle and compost the waste accumulated on a daily basis.
But with this marked growth in the scope of the program has come a few growing pains that the University will have to examine in the coming months.
A collaborative work-in-progress by the Office of Physical Plant, Housing and Food Services and the College of Agricultural Sciences, the project began as a modest test in one dining commons in early 1997. Staff collected green waste -- leftover salad bar food and other pre-consumer waste -- and students deposited soiled napkins in special receptacles for use in a remote compost site. Pre-consumer waste amounts to food that was prepared but not served.
The environmentally conscious project was a hit among employees and customers, so much so that it expanded to four dining commons by the end of 1997 and to all seven dining units on campus and hospitality services by spring 1999.
The compost was used for many landscaping activities on campus, such as flowerbeds and planters. Last year, the Trial Gardens were renovated with eight inches of compost and the flowers actually required less water and fertilizer and looked better, in spite of the drought. In addition, the composting program provided individual study and research opportunities for high school and college students, teaching the fundamentals of composting and demonstrating ways to adopt an environmentally conscious lifestyle.
Building on its success and multi-faceted uses for its product, the leaders of Project Earth Grow decided the next step was processing post-consumer waste. They set up a one-day test in Redifer Commons last December.
"We had no idea what to expect," said Michele Newhard, special projects manager for food services. "The one-day waste characterization was executed to get an idea about collection. We collected not only the food portion of the tray, but also the liquid portion -- all the beverages, soups etc. It was a very heavy job."
In fact, the test revealed that Redifer patrons disposed of an average of 2.23 pounds of waste per person, a total of 699 pounds of post-consumer garbage. Combined with the pre-consumer refuse, the total waste collected in the one-day test was 1,393 pounds. Overall, 85 percent of dining commons waste was deemed suitable for composting -- currently, the University only composts 35 percent.
Those results led to the current monthlong pilot program of waste collection in Redifer Commons, which began on March 13 and will continue through April 13. The test works in the same manner as the December test program, but without the collection of liquid waste. This larger experiment has revealed issues to address before the program can become a permanent procedure in all dining commons.
"The process is very messy and takes time -- about 15 seconds longer per tray, which could be detrimental on a busy night," said Newhard. "Plus, there are some ergonomic concerns in that we're asking our employees to now twist away from the trash trough and knock food into a receptacle, as opposed to simply staying stationary and knocking food into a trough that carries it to the disposal."
In addition to personnel concerns, the current composting site would not be able to handle such a dramatic increase in raw waste for all food service operations. OPP is currently trying to secure funding to build a larger composting site, complete with an education center and research area, that would be large enough to handle the University's composting needs for the next 10 years.
Still, the economic and educational benefits of finding a solution to make full-scale composting work are too large to ignore, and University officials are working to find a way to implement the program without creating a detrimental effect on dining commons and OPP staff.
"Economically, it pays to compost," said Regina Rao, composting coordinator. "Right now we compost approximately one ton of pre-consumer food waste daily. This saves the University approximately $65 per day in tipping fees (at a landfill). If we were to add post-consumer food waste from just the seven dining halls, we could save an additional $91 per day.
"Plus, the project demonstrates that recycling organic materials can be combined with the teaching, research and extension responsibilities of a large, land-grant university," she added. "Teaching, research and extension opportunities are available in all aspects of source separation, customer and staff recycling training, product collection and handling, composting methods, and use."
This combination of education, cost savings, environmental conservation and campus beautification truly would turn one man's trash into the University's treasure.