Just a few weeks ago, I brought my plate up to the dirty dish belt, where I normally throw away my napkin, but there was no garbage can. I considered throwing away my napkin into the silverware bin. Soon, I found a small sign that said, “We are now composting. Napkins and food stay on your plate.” I immediately thought that my efforts to push the dining hall to get a composting system had finally succeeded.
The Sustainable Life Club had been urging the dining hall to get a composting system installed for a few months. I remember Mr. Martin telling me that it was too costly for what they would be able to compost, but the last time that they considered composting was a few years ago. I thought that the club would have to put on a fundraiser so that we could raise money to bring the composting system into the dining hall.
But, just by asking about the possibility of composting, Mr. Martin reconsidered and met with Mr. Tannatt and Mr. McCullagh. As they investigated it anew, they found that Allied Waste, the waste company used by the dining hall, has a composting component that was a viable alternative for the dining hall.
For about 800 dollars a month, the school can compost all food waste: bones, leftover lasagna, or even tea bags. Also able to be composted are paper products: cardboard boxes and even the napkins on the table.
The compost is collected once a week and taken to a compost facility in Vermont. Before the composting system was put into place, the dining hall would need to run the sink disposal for an hour each meal to get rid of food waste. As well as all the energy required to power the disposal for every meal, the dining hall also used about 420 gallons of water per meal to send it down the drain. Now, with the compost system in place, the dining hall can save 1,260 gallons of water a day as well as all the electricity that is required to run the disposal. I am particularly pleased with the composting system because it is a sustainable practice that every student on campus participates in.