For the Green Campus Initiative, a State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry student organization, composting was at the top of the list of ways to make the campus greener.

‘It seemed fun and doable, so I decided to take the project on last semester,’ said Justin Heavey, a junior environmental studies major.

Green Campus Initiative, dedicated to lessening ESF’s impact on the environment, is launching a new aerated composting program to reduce the amount of waste generated on campus.

Set to launch next week, students and faculty will be able to place their food waste in collection bins located in snack areas in Baker Hall, Moon Library and Bray Hall, as well as the Gallery in Marshall Hall.

Green Campus Initiative hopes the program will serve as an example for students and the community, said Andrew Dorr, a junior environmental studies major.

‘Given the urban area we are in, it’s important to show people that you can do this,’ Dorr said. ‘There are always ways to reduce your impact.’

Aerated composting is a much faster process than traditional composting because air is released in the bin and filters up through the organic material. This creates increased microbial action, which allows for faster decomposition, said Michael Amadori, an ecological engineering graduate student.

ESF’s aerated composting system will take one month to produce Grade A compost, which is safe and usable, compared to the 90 days required for traditional composting.

In traditional composting, the pile of organic material must be turned to increase airflow and microbial activity. This causes heat to be lost and is not as effective at raising oxygen levels necessary for good decomposition, he said.

Composting programs have been attempted at ESF before, but they failed due to lack of student upkeep, Amadori said.

‘Composting has been attempted several times by (Green Campus Initiative) and other groups, and the reason it’s never worked out is because the massive amount of organization has never really been undertaken seriously enough to have something that lasted,’ Heavey said.

Although Green Campus Initiative already thought about traditional composting on campus, the idea for aerated composting came after Peter Moon, president of O2Compost, visited ESF, Amadori said. Moon and O2Compost recently installed an aerated composting system at the White House to reuse food waste from the White House garden.

Green Campus Initiative expressed interest in aerated composting at the meeting, and after seeing the enthusiasm, Moon gave them an offer they couldn’t refuse, Heavey said. Moon told the group that he would supply the training manual and a starter kit with all of the major equipment necessary, as long as the group built a bin to hold the compost.

This cut down on costs, leaving only basic materials such as shovels, wheel barrels and buckets for the student organization to buy, Amadori said.

The project cost $1,200 to start, with $600 coming from ESF and the remaining $600 from Green Campus Initiative, Heavey said.

The Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency donated starting compost to jump-start the program, Amadori said.

Aerated composting requires a mixture of green waste, made up of food collected on campus, and brown waste, made up of woodchips from the Woodsmen’s Team, and leaves collected by the Physical Plant, Amadori said.

For now, Green Campus Initiative will be responsible for all program maintenance, but there is a possibility that ESF’s Physical Plant could help with the duties in the future. The organization’s members will collect the bins twice a week, as well as measure and record the amount of material collected. The Physical Plant will only consider helping if the program proves to be successful, Dorr said.

Eventually the program will welcome food waste and other organic materials from off-campus sources, including student households.

‘If we can get the system to work and have the space to take in more, we should definitely do it,’ Amadori said.

Green Campus Initiative hopes the program will offer a much needed service to ESF and the surrounding community, Dorr said.

‘Without the city having something like (a composting system), it will be good that students can come here and keep their wastes out of the garbage stream,’ he said.

jlsiart@syr.edu

Published on February 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm