The College of Charleston hosted its first large-scale zero waste event as part of Family Weekend brunch in September 2013. The Office of Student Life, Dining Services, and the Office of Sustainability collaborated to ensure 91 percent of all waste generated was composted, including food, drinks, plates, cups, cutlery, and napkins. The industry definition for zero waste requires that less than 10% of total waste is sent to the landfill.
[Related: Why compost?]
At the brunch, Sustainability Fellow Abby Tennenbaum and Heather Walbright of Food Waste Disposal (the College’s composting vendor) worked with volunteers to man the resource recovery stations.
Tennenbaum said, “The most rewarding part of the whole event was the interactions we had with the students and their parents. Having volunteers and Heather there really fostered a lot of understanding about the composting process and sparked some great conversation about why we are doing this.”
[Related: What is the difference between pre-consumer and post-consumer composting?]
Over the past year, Office of Sustainability and Dining Services staff have been working closely to divert food waste from the landfill through composting. This summer Liberty Fresh Food Company joined City Bistro in pre-and post-consumer composting. The start of the 2013-2014 academic year marked the beginning of the all-encompassing compost efforts throughout the College’s dining facilities that moved beyond large dining halls to include pre-consumer composting at Stern Food Court, Einstein Bagels, and Chic-Fil-A. The Catering Department also began pre-consumer composting this fall and has begun expanding into post-consumer composting as well.
[Related: Locations and hours of all campus dining facilities.]
“Food Waste Disposal is proud to be a partner with the College in their efforts to create a more sustainable campus. It is exciting to see the College add four new locations and triple the amount of collection carts from last year to this year.” notes Wayne Koeckeritz, owner of Food Waste Disposal.
So far this fiscal year (beginning in July) the College’s composting has eliminated a total of 58,638 pounds of waste from the landfill. In three months alone, last year’s total compost amount has been surpassed by 7,669 pounds.
For more information, contact Jen Jones at jejones2@cofc.edu or Brittany Collins at collinsbd@cofc.edu.
