A glimpse into the brown paper bag on my patio reveals coffee grounds, kale stalks, egg shells, olive pits and the seeded skeleton of a red pepper. These are just a few artifacts of the meals cooked in my apartment over the last week. In a few days, my roommate or I will carry it across central campus, fruit flies trailing, and toss it in the green receptacle near Dame’s Express labeled “Brooks Contractor: compostable materials.”
Composting is the process by which we recycle organic materials. Just like we recycle plastics and make them into other plastic products, we can recycle the rich nutrients that become bioavailable when organic matter decomposes. Recovering this so-called “waste” is agriculturally beneficial and helps to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, yet most of the organic matter we toss away each year ends up in a landfill. Of the 250 million tons of municipal solid waste the U.S. generated in 2013, over 50 percent was organic materials such as paper, cardboard, yard trimmings and food scraps. We compost some of it, but food scraps still make up the largest component of discarded trash. It is up to us as consumers to personally and institutionally support the effort to increase composting rates both on and off campus.
Even if you’ve never thought about what happens with your leftovers, from your very first day at Marketplace, you’ve participated in composting at Duke. All of the campus eateries compost pre-consumer food waste, which means that the shells from all the eggs cracked and the skins from all the vegetables peeled are diverted from the landfill and sent to the Brooks composting facility in Goldston, NC. Some of the eateries also have programs for post-consumer composting; for example, Marketplace and Penn Pavilion directly facilitate this compost by sorting it for us, while the Divinity Café and Café de Novo offer receptacles where you can sort out your own compostables, recyclables and trash. Additionally, Duke University Grounds Unit and Sarah P. Duke Gardens practice composting to reuse yard clippings.
On an individual level, however, composting rates appear to be relatively low at Duke. Though data is not available for personal composting practices, I have witnessed many a classmate ignore the composting pilot program in buildings like Sanford, neglecting to separate out their food scraps. I know of very few individuals who choose to compost in their apartments or dorm rooms. Each year their food waste could have been composted to reduce pesticide and artificial fertilizer use on commercial or family farms, providing a host of economic and ecological benefits. Instead, it will likely sit in a landfill—the third largest source of methane emissions in the United States. These food scraps, yard trimmings and other organic waste will decompose anaerobically, producing methane gas that has a global warming potential 25 times that of carbon dioxide.
For Central Campus residents and Duke seniors living off campus, composting is completely within our capacity. This is my second semester composting my food scraps and other organic waste, separating it from my recyclables and non-recyclable trash and disposing of it in Dame’s Express’s (formerly Food Factory at Devil’s Bistro) outdoor receptacle for composting. It’s easy, and it’s free, and no, it doesn’t smell (though you could further reduce this risk by storing it in your freezer or on your patio, if you live on Central).
If you don’t want to carry your compost to the bin by Dame’s or live off campus, you can pay a local business a small fee per month to help you divert your food scraps from the landfill. For example, Tilthy Rich is a composting service local to Durham. Starting at just $15 a month, Tilthy Rich compost connoisseurs will provide you with a bucket, bike over to your residence weekly, collect your delicious food scraps just waiting to turn into something useful and clean your bucket for another week of composting.
A skeptical individual might question how her household waste makes a difference in the grand scheme of our society’s waste management problem. It’s true: of all the emissions from organic matter that ends up in a landfill, my coffee grounds have an impact so negligible as to be statistically zero. Like any other collective action problem, dismissing the impacts of your contribution to the problem, or solution, is behaviorally instinctual for many. What is more difficult is to challenge yourself to live as if others are following your example.
On an individual level, composting does carry significant social impact. By composting at Duke, you are sending a signal to the University’s waste management department that you demand the services provided by the available composting facilities, that the pilot programs are working, that we want more of them. Similarly, offering financial support to companies like Tilthy Rich helps them to reinvest in the community, as they are advocating for a municipal composting service in Durham.
Too often we live a linear lifestyle, treating processes like they have a start and finish, entry and exit. That the life cycle of food, for example, is from seed, plant and harvest, to grocery store, refrigerator and mouth. We buy, we eat, we poop. But in nature, these processes are circular: the end reaps a new beginning, and energy is constantly being newly exchanged. As humans, we are not superimposed on the natural world, higher actors manipulating the non-human nature around us, and pursuing better waste management practices is one way to tap into natural energy flows and increase our harmony with the planet. We can’t shrug off our personal role in achieving such a shift, and we need to act now: otherwise, we’re wasting time.
Rachel Weber is a Trinity senior. Her column runs on alternate Wednesdays.
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