Campus composting...

Composting is one of those environmental initiatives that has the potential to be very effective. Composting on Trent's campus has been around for a couple of years but has been vigorously pushed of late. We now have a comprehensive campus wide composting program that collects things that you would not expect your typical compost to collect i.e. waxed paper, paper sandwich wraps and paper plates. In the 2006-2007 academic year our campus composted something like 15,000 kg, an adequate yet relatively small amount given our student population. On the plus side, our composting trends have improved and are starting to look more hopeful. We composted about 56,000 kg last year alone.

I am conducting a campus composting survey this week for one of my classes and in collaboration with the Sustainability Office of our university. The questions are quite eclectic but mainly revolve around common attitudes and perceptions to composting i.e. advantages to such a program, is it well advertised? Which buildings on campus have the highest trends of composting etc. The results are going hopefully reveal a lot of critical data and information- information that we're going to put into a report to make recommendations on how to make the composting program more efficient and effective provided that resources are made available. Composting is one of those things that requires mutual responsibility from the producer and consumer and to a certain degree, it requires social solidarity. Students, faculty and staff are only going to compost if they are aware and informed about its advantages, and if they understand the merits of conserving waste and making waste diversion a more thorough process.

The survey will have a variance in responses and attitudes to composting. I will share them as time progresses.