Composting: Just A Sticky Situation? Or Potential for All Kinds of New Growth?

By: Emma Stanfield, Zachary Devereux, Caroline Schreck, Maia Rodriguez-Choi, Cali Ngyuen, and Elizabeth Popescu. Edited by Chloe Ney.

Last week, the University Apartments (UA) Waste Diversion team participated in walkthroughs Friday morning of various university apartments with and without composting systemz in place. We got in contact with Laura from custodial through our stakeholder, Erin, who gave us a quick tours of the buildings.

We were informed that 510 Landfair already had a compost system in place. There were caddies with linings available that were emptied about 2-3 times per week, but this number would need to be verified. An issue brought to our attention was that of residents disposing compost from caddies without the proper lining– this poses an issue for custodial who have to clean it after each trash pick-up, and has also forced them implement pest control. This is an issue our team aims to address as the quarter progresses. We were pleased to learn that the 625 Gayley and Hilgard graduate apartments already have composting systems in place as well.

The last buildings are potential target buildings for our team for the remainder of this quarter and spring. 528 Glenrock has plenty of space for compost bins to be put on each floor and is in need of signage as well. As for Gayley Court and Chateau, we could potentially implement compost bins on the basement level next to the recycling bins. We plan to contact administration for more in-depth statistics relating to the waste produced at each building, so that we will have more concrete data.

Our next steps include deciding on which target buildings we will focus on and when to conduct a waste audit for 3-4 hours before the quarter ends. We are so excited to get hands-on  and continue our efforts of waste diversion!

Shown above, is a picture of Gayley Court apartments, a potential target building for the UA Waste Diversion Team.