Monday, March 24, 2014

Whitney uses composting services, by Samantha Loomis




Whitney dining services, along with all other food sources on campus, utilizes a newly implemented composting system. Coffee grounds are composted from cafes all over campus as well as all the trimmings from fruits and vegetables. 

Manager Nori Yamashita says, “We have a truck that goes around campus and picks up all the compost. I notice there are two buckets full by dinner time. Still a lot going into the waste, [we are] not capturing as much [compost] as we can.”

At this time composting is off-site, taken away by trucks. In the near future, Western Technical College is building a new facility that University of Wisconsin-La Crosse will be able to utilize and work with the composting program at Western Tech. The composting facility will still be off-site; however, there will be greater benefits from working closely with Western Tech.

Currently, UW-L’s student-powered composting crew ordered a vermicomposting system which is “a natural method for speeding up the breakdown of vegetable scraps through the use of worms.” This crew is separate from the dining services composting; both receive the waste from the same sources.