ver


Recycling & Composting at Tufts

Decentralized dining at Tufts is both convenient for students and a challenge for composting and recycling. Tufts Dining serves approximately 2 million meals each year. Carmichael and Dewick, the two main dining halls, compost both food preparation wastes and post consumer food waste. A total of one hundred and seventy tons of food was composted in fiscal year 2007. Each day, about 0.5 tons of food is composted on the Medford campus and since 2001, the total food composted during the fiscal year has increased by almost 70 tons, allowing a 62% reduction in yearly solid food and non-food waste.

Follow this link to find out more about how composting and recycling works at Tufts.

Recycling & Composting

Recycling and composting are the natural way of the universe. Any student of ecology will tell you that nature is continuously undergoing a cycle of decay and regeneration. As leaves decay, nutrients seep into the ground providing food for plant life, which in turn becomes food for animal life and the cycle of regeneration continues up the food chain. People have been composting for centuries. The piles of food wastes dumped by early peoples became fertile sites for plant growth and are considered by some to have been the root of agriculture.

In the U.S. and in countries world wide composting has taken hold as an inexpensive means of conserving landfill space and generating valuable, nutrient rich soil. In 1990 The Pollution Prevention Act was created by the EPA to focus public attention on opportunities to reduce waste in production, operation and raw materials use. President Bush signed an executive order in 1991 requiring federal agencies to commence recycling and fuel efficient programs and fuel efficiency. However, there is no federal mandate requiring nation-wide recycling or composting. Cities and states have taken the lead across America in mandating landfill and solid waste reductions by as much as 50%, in the case of San Francisco, with goals for 70% by the year 2010 in the state of Massachusetts. The buy-in of city and state government is crucial for the success of a recycling program, according to officials from San Francisco’s waste management department. In San Francisco, the city’s 1500 restaurants recycle food wastes which are composted to provide highly demanded, fertile soil for Napa and Sonoma valley wineries and farms.

One of the keys to successful recycling and composting of food wastes is the ability to turn a profit or demonstrate social and environmental benefits, thus sustaining the program for future generations. Recycling creates new infrastructure, jobs and an entire new segment of the economy. According to the Solid Waste Master Plan in Massachusetts “recycling, reuse and remanufacturing directly support 19,000 jobs, maintain a payroll of nearly $600 million, and bring in annual revenues of $3.6 billion. Total direct and indirect economic activity from recycling, reuse and remanufacting is estimated to generate more than $142 million annually in state revenues.”

Facts and Figures from WasteCap, Massachusetts waste reduction website:

• Massachusetts incinerates 43% of its waste; landfills 19%; recycles the remaining 38%.
• Food waste makes up 10% of all Municipal Solid Waste.
• Yard waste, leaves, wood, food, paper and paperboard are compostable and
  make up 70% of municipal solid waste.
• Only 5%-10% of organic waste is composted in Massachusetts.
• South Carolina leads the nation in composting with a rate of 14%.
• Businesses with record-setting food diversion programs are recovering 50% to 100% of
  food discards and reducing their overall solid waste by 33% to 85%.

Recycling and composting in Massachusetts has the capacity to save yearly:

• Greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1 million tons of carbon equivalent per year.
• 12 trillion BTUs of energy, equivalent to the annual energy consumption of 115,000
  households, 2.1 million barrels of oil, or more than 100 million gallons of gasoline.
• 570,000 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone and more than 16 million trees.

Sources:
www.vegweb.com/composting
www.sfenvironment.com/articles
www.wastecap.org/wastecap/commodities/organics/organics
www.epa.gov/region5/
www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/priorities/swprfs3.doc