Food Waste | Yard Waste

Food Waste

     During the academic year, the Medford campus now composts a little over 1 ton of food waste each day:

FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07

FY08

106.2 tons 82.1 tons 97.35 tons 147.7 tons 156 tons 170.6 tons 181 tons

221 tons

               

The composting program has allowed Dining Services to reduce its yearly solid food and non-food waste sent to the dumpsite by 62%. Dining Service employees in Carmichael Dining Hall, Dewick-MacPhie Dining Hall, the Catering Department and in the university's Central Production Facility place food scraps and organic materials into composting bins.

Food waste from Tufts is picked up from two haulers. Save That Stuff collects from Carmichael Dining Hall and takes the material to Rocky Hill Farm in Saugus MA. Thompson (Herb's) Disposal picks up material from Dewick Mac-Phie and takes it to DEP-permitted compost facilities in Massachusetts and it can travel all the way to Maine. Our food waste is combined with leaves and other organic materials to generate nutrient-rich compost for farmers and landscapers.

Keeping organic materials out of Massachusetts' already crowded landfills not only saves landfill space but also cuts the generation of methane-a powerful greenhouse gas created from organic materials' anaerobic decomposition.

Tufts students have found that compared to the amount of methane prevented by composting, the carbon emissions from the Thompson Disposal hauling truck are negligible.

For more information about composting, the world's oldest recycling system, please visit www.vegweb.com/composting.

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Tufts Dining separates food scraps during meal preparation.

The food Tufts students leave on their trays is emptied into the "river" by dishroom staff. Food scraps are then "pulped" to extract water. The finished scraps appears like a hummus.


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Yard Waste

The Medford Campus also composts all its yard waste. LandscapeXpress, a local company, picks up leaves and other yard waste. The yard waste numbers are converted from cubic yard to tons.

FY 02 FY 03 FY 04 FY 05 FY 06 FY 07 FY 08
425 tons 430 tons 502 tons 437 tons

510 tons

476 tons 435 tons
Yard waste is measured in cubic yards, not in tons. The conversion we used is 500 lbs per cubic yard. Tufts has four lawn mowers which chop the grass making our yard waste very dense. Industry average weight per cubic yard ranges from 350-500 per pound.

Grafton composts all its manure, bedding and yard waste on site. The compost is used as fertilizer on the fields.

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