by Laura Donnelly-Smith
A new composting system at Pelham Commons on the George Washington University’s Mount Vernon Campus aims to keep food waste out of landfills while serving as a test case for what could eventually become a larger composting program at the university.
A newly installed recycling center with separate receptacles for compostable items, recyclable items and trash was installed at Pelham Commons during spring break week. After eating, diners will carry their trays to the recycling center and put food scraps and compostable to-go food boxes into the compost bin, bottles and cans into the recycling bin, and trash like plastic wrap into the landfill bin. Silverware and trays go onto the conveyer belt to be washed and reused. The Urban Food Task Force provided a grant that covered the cost of purchasing and installing the recycling center.
Ronda Chapman-Duer, GW’s sustainability project facilitator, said the composting project has been in the works for nine or 10 months. Pelham was selected as the pilot site because of its manageable size and well-contained location, and because there is only one vendor—Sodexo—working at the site, rather than many vendors, as is the case at J Street on the Foggy Bottom Campus.
“This is really a response to what the students have been asking for,” Ms. Chapman-Duer said. “If you want a holistic, sustainable approach [to running university dining facilities], you need to have as many elements as possible, and composting is an important component.”
“Back of house” food waste from the Pelham Commons kitchens has been composted since West Hall opened in 2010, but the new composting center is the first time that the university has provided composting receptacles in a public space. Compostable materials will be collected by Progressive Waste, a hauling company, and taken to a composting facility in Delaware, Ms. Chapman-Duer said. The compostable material from that facility is eventually resold to consumers and farms.
GW’s Office of Sustainability’s Ecosystem Enhancement Strategy includes targets for composting and recycling on campus, said junior Miles Miliken, vice president for operations for the Food Justice Alliance and eco-rep coordinator for Campaign GW.
To ensure that diners understand how composting works and how to separate their trash properly, students educators will be in Pelham during lunch and dinner this week to provide composting assistance.
“This is an exciting thing,” Mr. Miliken said. “We’re working with students, and I’m excited for them to have this challenge of diverting their waste from the landfill. I’m optimistic that this pilot will go well and can be scaled up to include J Street sometime in coming years.”
Office of Sustainability Director Meghan Chapple-Brown said that compostable organic materials continue to make up the largest percentage of solid waste. By composting organic material and allowing it to break down naturally, the university can avoid both the cost of transporting that material to landfills and contributing to the problems associated with landfills themselves—including toxic runoff and greenhouse gases.
“If we are able to shift our view on ‘garbage’ to useful materials that are latent assets, then we are avoiding problems and costs, and instead capturing valuable resources,” Ms. Chapple-Brown said.
At the end of the semester, the Office of Sustainability will examine data from waste pickup amounts at Pelham and compare them to baseline numbers recorded before the composting bins were in place, Ms. Chapman-Duer said. The difference will represent the amount of waste diverted from landfills.
To learn more about GW’s sustainability efforts, visit the Office of Sustainability online.