Large-Scale Composting For a More Sustainable SLC
The Warren Green Composters
Over the past few months, climate change has been a hot topic. As a resident of Warren Green, in addition to a human being who lives on planet Earth, I’m glad that we’re finally starting to address the largest existential threat to humans. I’m glad that young people, in particular, are getting involved to create a better (or, at least, present) future for themselves. I’m glad that the old tips of “Reduce/Reuse/Recycle” or “turn off the water in the sink when you’re brushing your teeth” are being swapped out in exchange for radical lifestyle and potential policy changes that target the biggest polluters and culprits of climate change. More and more people are eating less meat, dairy, and palm oil, using less or no plastic, and thinking critically and carefully about how their lifestyle impacts the planet, specifically, how we can all evaluate our uses and wasting of food.
This low-waste mindset can be observed with the opening of the new dining area in the Barbara Walters Center. The addition of meal combos and other new guidelines for what constitutes as a swipe are changes that were allegedly made to help SLC students better budget their meal swipes, a seeming attempt to combat food waste. But food insecurity on campus has also been an ongoing conversation on campus. Last year, the issue picked up momentum through the addition of the Food Sharing Space, and the Westlands sit-in. The gap between wasting and wanting for food is seen not only at SLC, but around the world as well.
According to the Food and Agriculture Association of the United States, about ⅓ of the food produced (1.3 billion tonnes) is wasted every year, with the majority of those being fruits and vegetables. Food waste (which, on estimation, costs the US about $680 billion dollars) is not just a problem for our wallets: about 11% of greenhouse gas emissions that result from the food and agricultural industries come from food waste. There are two major ways to stop greenhouse gas emissions that result from food waste. The first is, of course, to eat the food instead of throwing it away. The second is composting. According to the EPA, compostable food constitutes about 30% of what Americans throw away, so a major way to reduce landfills and pollution would be to start composting more seriously and consistently.
Composting is fairly easy, as it’s just a faster version of what the Earth would do anyway. Everything,even things like plastic, have a decomposition time ––but when things like food scraps, hair, unbleached cardboard, and eggshells are put in a landfill, they become buried under other matter and undergo anaerobic decomposition and produce methane gas. When composted, on the other hand, these items would be exposed to oxygen and emit CO2. When compost is facilitated correctly, it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create new green jobs and industries, plus rich, nutrient-dense plant fertilizer, and reduce our need for landfills.
This is why when I heard of the Barbara Walters Center’s switching over to compostable plates and bowls, including their adding a vegan section (anything vegan is compostable), I was excited for the green moves that SLC was making. However, SLC does not have an industrial composter, so these “compostable” plates are being thrown either into the paper recycling or simply into the trash. Although people have their hearts in the right place when they reach for the paper recycling bin, soiled paper/cardboard cannot be recycled, and food grease is a huge proponent of this. In addition, compostables are not the same thing as recycling: they not only take much longer to decompose in the trash, but they also contaminate true recyclables. Without widespread composting efforts on campus, the only option we are left with is to just throw our plates in the trash, defeating the purpose of a compostable plate in the first place.
Virtually no one has come to the Warren Green compost with a handful of plates from the BWCC, but people feel like they’re making a difference when they toss their “biodegradable” plates into the landfill bin, but the facts are that feelings alone don’t change things. There is no industrial composter at Sarah Lawrence, and the Warren Green and Hill House composts are insufficient for the amount of food waste SLC produces. Additionally, students living in areas like Andrews Court or Slonim aren’t close enough to the compost bins frequently contribute their kitchen scraps to the composts. Students living on campus without kitchens also have to cope with this problem of distance, as both Bates and the BWCC dining pavilion are far from the campus compost bins. If SLC installed compost bins in the main dining halls on campus, in addition to adding a compost bin to the trash cans outside of residence halls, people would have somewhere other than the trash to throw out perfectly compostable things. but right now, we have no way to process that without an industrial composter.
With an industrial composter, the College could be a greener, more sustainable school. It is also worth pointing out that waste management is a profitable business. Other colleges around the country have taken advantage of the money-saving benefits of industrial composting. The University of Maine saves about $32,000 per year by composting their food waste. At Sarah Lawrence, we could sell our compost and put the profits towards efforts to end food insecurity on campus.
As of now, there is no way to large-scale compost at Sarah Lawrence, and recent sustainability efforts have been misguided because of that oversight. Compostable materials were not made to be deprived of oxygen in landfills, fruits and vegetables were not meant to go to waste while students go hungry, and the Earth was not meant to endure the abuse that humans are putting it through. To find out the ways in which you can reduce your carbon footprint, consider attending a Sustainability Committee or SLC Grow meeting. And, while it might be a few extra steps, walk over to the Warren Green community garden with a handful of those dirty plates.
Maddy Broderick, ‘20