Friday, November 14, 2008

COMPOST revival

Hey folks,
Composting has many benefits both locally and globally. On a national level it has been estimated that if every one composted we could divert up to 24% of our current waste stream from landfills and incinerators. On the local scale GMC college campus compost supplies the Cerridwen Farm with a natural fertilizer for their crops many of which end up back in the Chartwells dining hall.
As you may or may not know there have been issues with our compost system over the past year that have resulted in a dramatic drop in usable material being sent to the farm. What does not go to the farm ends up in the trash. But have no fear there is light at the end of the tunnel; we are almost to a point where the compost system will be making a jump back to full usage.
Over the past several weeks myself and several other students have been working with Chartwells and the Farm Crew to develop a system that will encourage those who use the dining hall to compost appropriately. This means less trash in the compost, most usable compost, and less material in the waste stream. We have developed a new bin system that has been approved by Chartwells and are at the point where we need help building it. If you are interested in helping build or decorate the bins or would like to know more about the project please contact me by email at sarubbia@greenmtn.edu. We are tentatively build date is Saturday, December 6th.

2 comments:

Jesse said...

Sweet! Glad to see you're pickin' up the garbage! Keep up the good work.

Amber said...

Thanks Jese,
And the best news yet.... we got the funding and the space to build. If all goes according to planned we will have it up and running by the end of the semester.