Composting Turns Dining Commons Trash Into Treasure

April 4, 2000

University Park, Pa. — Compost from food waste is enriching the campus landscape at Penn State in a program that is proving to be almost too successful.

Since its inception three years ago, Project Earth Grow has efficiently been turning food waste from University dining commons into a wealth of campus beautification opportunities. Each new step in the program has yielded bigger aspirations and larger pilot tests in pursuit of the ideal way to re-use the waste accumulated on a daily basis.

But with growth has come a few growing pains that the University will have to examine in the coming months. Still, the economic and educational benefits of finding a solution to full-scale composting are too large to ignore, and University officials are working to find a way to implement the program without creating problems for 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. 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 utilization."

A collaborative work-in-progress by the Office of Physical Plant (OPP), Housing and Food Services, and the College of Agriculture, Project Earth Grow began as a modest test in one dining commons in early 1997. Staff collected green waste — leftover salad bar food, potato peels, and other pre-consumer waste — and students deposited napkins in special receptacles for use in the compost site.

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 and hospitality services by spring 1999.

The compost is being in flowerbeds, planters, and other landscape projects on campus. Last year, the Horticulture Trial Gardens were renovated with eight inches of compost. The flowers actually required less water and fertilizer and looked better than ever in spite of the severe drought. In addition, the program provides individual study and research opportunities for high school and college students, and teaches the fundamentals of composting and ways to adopt an environmentally conscious lifestyle.

Building on its success and multi-faceted uses, officials decided the next step for Project Earth Grow was to try adding post-consumer waste, and 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 done to get an idea about collection. We collected not only the food portion of the tray, but also the liquids — all the beverages, soups, and so forth. 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 that day for 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 month-long 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, while more efficient in handling a variety of food waste, has revealed problems 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 become a problem on a busy night," said Newhard. "Plus, there are some ergonomic concerns. We’re now asking our employees to twist away from the trash trough and knock food into a receptacle, as opposed to staying stationary and knocking food into a trough that carries it to the disposal."

Newhard noted that the program will not be implemented full-time in all dining commons until these personnel concerns are resolved with a more efficient system that causes less strain to food services staff.

In addition, the current temporary composting site behind the salvage building on the north side of campus is currently unable to handle such a dramatic increase in raw waste for all food service operations. However, 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.

As Project Earth Grow strives toward its planned objective, the combination of education, cost-savings, environmental conservation, and campus beautification will continue to turn one person’s trash into the University’s treasure.

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Contact: Tysen Kendig, Department of Public Information, (814) 865-7517 or .