Composting pilot program launching

No plans to extend Leonard pickup elsewhere, Griffiths says; RWS still to lobby Queen’s, city

Food Services won’t collaborate with the city on its organic waste management program.
Image by: Harrison Smith
Food Services won’t collaborate with the city on its organic waste management program.

AMS team RWS hopes to work with the University and the city to compost organic waste across campus. Food Services is starting a pilot composting project next week in Leonard Hall this month, but Residence and Hospitality Services Director Bruce Griffiths said it’s unlikely this will be expanded any time soon.

“Leonard is a pilot program for the next year,” he said. “We want to get the bugs out of it before expanding into the other dining halls. We would then look at expanding into retail.” Griffiths said it would be difficult to expand the program beyond the cafeterias, whose staff sorts through the waste as students leave their trays on the conveyor belts.

Griffiths said the main logistical problem in expanding the compost program to campus retail is the need to teach students how to separate compostable from non-compostable material.

“The education involved in this would be tremendous,” he said.

Phil Sparks, Food Services resident district manager, said Leonard Cafeteria is starting a compost program with the support of CORCAN, an agency within Correctional Service of Canada.

“Until now, there has been no place for organic waste to go,” he said.

The first organic waste pick-up from Leonard will be on Jan 30. The waste will be compacted behind Leonard Hall before being transported to CORCAN’s central composting facility, located close to Kingston.

Sparks said it’s feasible to redirect organic waste to a composting facility, but there are possible logistical problems.

“It can’t be 100 per cent perfect by tomorrow. It takes retraining of the way people sort their waste.”

There’s a risk that non-compostable material will be mixed with compostable material, he said. If a certain percentage of sorted waste is non-compostable, it’s redirected to a landfill instead of the compost facility.

“Leonard is the least of our problems. Our staff controls all the waste that comes in and out. The public is the biggest challenge,” he said. “There is a low percentage of waste that can be non-compostable before being redirected to landfills.” Another problem is the bags used to collect the waste, Sparks said. Food Services is buying compostable bags from a manufacturer so the first organic waste pick-up can go ahead as planned.

Griffiths said the compostable bags—at $0.85 a bag—are more expensive than regular, $0.20 plastic garbage bags, but this isn’t stopping Food Services from implementing the new initiative.

“If greener were cheaper and easier, then everyone would do it,” he said.

Food Services is implementing this program separately from any city initiatives, Griffiths said.

“Kingston didn’t have a compost facility,” he said. “There is no dialogue with the city taking place.”

City of Kingston Public Education Co-ordinator Tim LaPrade said the city isn’t involved with the University’s initiative but is working to launch an organic waste pick-up program of their own for residents starting this fall.

An Integrated Waste Management Study encouraged Kingstonians to divert 65 per cent of their waste from landfill by 2012. The city will host a public consultation on Jan. 30 to ask for feedback on the report.

“After that, we’ll start moving forward with the recommendations,” LaPrade said.

Stephanie St. Clair, AMS vice-president (university affairs) candidate, said the team’s platform involves expanding the compost initiative to include residences and other campus facilities as well as continuing the program at Leonard Cafeteria.

“We have two separate plans of action. One, we will work directly with Food Services and Corrections Canada,” St. Clair said. “Two, we will work with the city. This past summer, the city launched a reassessment of the waste management system and established a 25-year plan. This emphasized a plan to target the student ghetto.” Team RWS wants to encourage the city of Kingston to implement an organic waste pick-up system by 2010.

 “We are hoping to advocate on behalf of students to speed up the process. We want to rejuvenate and revitalize the idea of the AMS as a lobby group,” she said. “Next year, the initiative would extend to the JDUC and residences.” St. Clair said many people don’t realize how much of landfills are organic waste.

Because of the wide range of services at Queen’s that produce organic waste, there are multiple organizations that would be involved, she said.

“We would work with the sustainability co-ordinator, cafs, residences and the city council to coordinate all of these aspects.” St. Clair said both the University and the city are looking to revitalize their environmental reputations.

“Kingston itself is trying to rebrand its image. For example, there is lobbying for the city to be fair trade and there is a resurgence of the farmer’s market.”

Presidential candidate Talia Radcliffe said her team’s initiative is particularly important to first-year students so they can learn to compost before they leave residence for the student Ghetto, where much organic waste is produced but not composted.

“Starting out with first-years means that when these students move into the Ghetto, they impact environmental sustainability.”

She said she was surprised Griffiths said students wouldn’t take the initiative to compost.

“If you train dons to teach [first-year students] … I’m almost positive they’d be excited to take that on.”

—With files from Gloria Er-Chua

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to content