How CSI is doing their part to reduce food waste in landfills
By Amanda Musto
A mountain of food scraps, leaves, and paper towel rolls started their composting journey this Tuesday to expand rations of the soil that helps grow CSI’s gardens.
Compost ambassador, Keair Brown, and sustainability program manager, Nora Santiago, host workshops monthly on campus, inviting students and local residents to learn about composting in a hands-on event. While teaching the process, Brown and Santiago make sure to explain everything being done, as well as the positive aspects of composting and why people should be doing it at home.
“The composting workshops are a great way to bring people together in the community, especially since it’s open to non-CSI students as well,” said Santiago. “It is also a great way to help teach people to be more sustainable.”
Using a mix of fruit, vegetable, and eggshell scraps provided by dining services, along with paper towel rolls, leaves, and now woodchips, thanks to a donation from DSNY, they can create what they call compost lasagna. To start, large garbage pails full of food scraps are dumped on a tarp and sorted through, making sure all produce stickers, plastic wrap, and trash is removed, before chopping the scraps into small pieces using shovels and spades. Once the mixture is cut up enough, it gets tossed into the compost bin where the lasagna layers happen, before closing the lid and spinning the bin multiple times to mix everything together. After enough time in the bins, the compost is moved to a shaded area in the garden for the bugs to take over and finish breaking down any scraps left behind, helping produce the soil.
Each month during the semester, the compost bins collect 400-500 pounds of food scraps, seeing less during the summer and winter off seasons. The surplus of scraps coming in helps make large amounts of soil that is then used on campus in the gardens and the greenhouse at building 6S, which helps grow plants that are sold in campus plant sales, minus the mums and poinsettias that are brought in from an outside source.
“People should try to do more composting, not only just at these workshops,” said Timothy Smolka. “I think composting is such a good thing to do and is so helpful for the environment.”
The composting workshops help bring together people who care deeply for the environment and also want to find more ways to be sustainable. The knowledge that Brown and Santiago instill in the people who partake carries on past the workshop, teaching them how they can compost at home. Even if they do not want to go through the whole process to make the soil but still want to be more eco friendly with their food waste, they can bring it back to campus and put it in the compost bins that are used by the sustainability group.
“I love working at these composting workshops and seeing all the people that show up for it, whether it be their first time or their tenth time,” said Jade Carranza. “It makes me feel hopeful when I see people show up and show that they care.”
With more people wanting to help out at these workshops and compost for the school, it will hopefully lead to advancements like more bins and gardens on campus.
“Our goal is to have a commercial sized composter so the kitchen staff can take the food scraps to it daily, helping it become more streamlined,” said Santiago. “They are going to take out the garbage daily anyway so it would make it so simple to bring the compost material at the same time.”
I would love to talk to the founders of this!- CUNY Uncut