Syracuse University’s Office of Sustainability has involved more than 100 students living on South Campus in a composting program.

The Sustainability Office has attempted to gauge student interest in composting on South Campus over the past two years. In the first four weeks of this year’s program, more than 500 pounds of food have been composted, according to SU News.

As the program grows, the office is attempting to make composting easier and more accessible for all students, said Meg Lowe, SU’s sustainability coordinator.

“We don’t want students to feel like they have so many stressors as it is,” said Lowe. “They have to do well in school. They have to have a social life, exercise, mental health. The last thing they want to worry about is composting,”

Students are supposed to leave bins of food waste outside their apartments on South Campus by Friday morning, when the Office of Sustainability picks it up. Students can also drop off their compost at the Sustainability Office.

A representative will often text the students a reminder the night before, Lowe said.

The food is taken to the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency. The agency has compost addresses in Jamesville and Camillus, according to the agency’s website. Compost adds nutrients to soil, retains soil and suppresses the spread of plant disease.

Meanwhile, SUNY-ESF has implemented a program where food compost boxes are set up on every floor of every campus building, and two compost bins are placed outside of Moon Library and the Gateway Center.

Syracuse Haulers collect compost from SUNY-ESF’s campus four days per week.

Students in SUNY-ESF’s Green Campus Initiative first implemented a composting program in 2010 that was meant to overhaul the college’s organic waste management.

Several other universities across the country, including the University of Maryland and the University of Kentucky, have started or expanded their composting programs in the past year.

SU’s Office of Sustainability initially attempted to launch the composting program last fall. About 200 students initially signed up for notifications about information sessions, but only two students showed up to the information sessions, and none took part in the program.

“We really needed another way to do this,” Lowe said.

Last spring, students working for the sustainability office sat down in Goldstein Student Center on South Campus and handed out buckets for composting, Lowe said. They also passed out flyers explaining the initiative.

Over a ten-week period last spring, they composted about 100 pounds of food waste, Lowe said. Lowe plans to expand the program in the future by making it more accessible, she said.

“We’re still building it up at this point,” said Lowe. “We would like it to be south campus-wide in the future.”

Published on October 20, 2019 at 10:14 pm

Contact Gabe: gkstern@syr.edu | @gabestern326