This fall, MU will be one step closer to having a smaller carbon footprint with the implementation of a plan that will compost discarded dining hall food.
Campus Dining Services and the Bradford Extension Farm are initiating a plan that will take students’ food waste out of the landfill and put it back on the table. Through composting, their hope is to decrease student waste.
“The potential in food waste is up to 200 to 250 tons per year of compostable food that is currently going to a landfill,” CDS Executive Chef Eric Cartwright said.
The amount of food waste produced now is extremely high, Bradford Extension Farm Superintendent Tim Reinbott said.
“That’s four and half ounces per person per meal,” said Reinbott, who has been working on the plan for about two years.
The farm plans to combine food waste with animal waste to make compost. They will use the compost to grow vegetables to sell to MU.
CDS Marketing Manager Michael Wuest said the program will give students a chance to eat nutritious, local food.
“It will be very healthy, very organic and fresh,” he said.
Reinbott said the plan presents a unique opportunity for students.
“This is an ideal situation for students,” Reinbott said, adding that they can get involved, do studies and learn about composting and the benefits it offers.
Cartwright said the plan will cost about $100,000.
The static aerated compost facility, where the actual composting will take place, is still being built.
MU received a grant from the Mid-Missouri Solid Waste Management District and CDS is also footing a portion of the bill. There is still a shortage of funds, but Cartwright said the program will be moving forward nonetheless.
MU pays for its excess food waste to be taken to the city landfill as of now.
“We thought, let’s get it broken down and put it back in the ground,” Cartwright said. “We think it can actually save money.”
This is not the first project that has tried to reduce waste at MU. Rollins dining hall has had a pulper for years, which takes excess food waste and reduces its volume. A student group would then pick up the product and deliver it to a local farm for composting.
“We’d like to invest in more pulpers,” he said. “They speed up the composting process.”
Cartwright also said that dining halls could buy 100 percent compostable dishware.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for us to grow,” he said.
Reinbott hopes to hire students to run the facility, to make compost and to market vegetables.
“We’re looking for students who want to be involved in this,” he said.
He also hopes to change how the vehicles that will transport all of the waste materials run. CDS uses 3,000 gallons per year of vegetable oil, which can be converted into bio-diesel. That can then run the vehicles that pick up the waste materials and deliver vegetables back to campus.
This will create a system that uses essentially no outside carbon, Reinbott said.
“In effect, we’ll have a zero carbon footprint,” he said. “We have this complete cycle. It’s great. It’s a nice circle.”