Wasted Food Diverted from Landfills by Georgia College Composting
Wednesday, April 27th, 2022
Food takes up the most space in landfills. Up to 40% of the nation’s food supply is wasted, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That’s 80 billion pounds each year.
Georgia College’s Office of Sustainability is working to curb that number with a campus composting operation that’s diverted nearly 70,000 pounds of wasted food from local landfills since 2017—almost 10,000 pounds just this semester.
“I love this program, the way it was written and the way it operates. It’s something we can build off of in the future,” said Lori Hamilton, chief sustainability officer. “One huge benefit for the project is we're not sending waste to the landfill. We're reducing the costs that we pay out to have waste hauled from campus, and we're also doing it to benefit the environment.”
The composting project is saving space at Milledgeville landfills. But, in the future, Georgia College compost could also be sold externally with proceeds going back into the program. Composting may even expand to help local restaurants reutilized wasted food. Two bins at the dining hall are used to collect food that doesn’t make it onto plates or gets scraped off. The rubbish is transported to the composting center, weighed and put through a giant compost mixer. It mixes food with sawdust, slowly turning for two or three weeks. Material is then dumped into piles for more turning and aeration. Fully matured compost is used as fertilizing soil at the campus garden on West Campus.
It’s a good learning experience for students. Two environmental science students recently completed research about the composting process. Others work as interns at the composting facility on West Campus.
“I've just learned so much on this job that's applicable,” said senior history major Jackson Masters. “I’ve learned the value of teamwork, especially working with other people in the office.”
