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.
