Composting program expands to student apartments

This fall, welcome gifts for students moving into campus apartments included biodegradable compost bags.

The bags are part of a new phase of UB’s organics collection program, which is designed to divert on-campus organic waste from landfills, where it would otherwise produce harmful greenhouse gases. Instead, food waste from campus dining halls — and now apartments — is collected, processed and turned into compost, animal feed and renewable energy.

UB has been capturing and diverting pre-consumer organics — scraps from food preparation and any food that is no longer safe to serve due to time or temperature concerns — from campus and residential dining operations for more than 15 years.

“Composting food waste rather than sending it to a landfill for disposal significantly decreases methane emissions and ultimately generates microbe-rich soil as an end product,” explains Erin Moscati, UB’s zero waste manager.

“Participating in the organics collection program is a meaningful way to reduce individual waste,” Moscati says, but notes that planning ahead is the most important part of avoiding food waste.

Working toward achieving zero waste is one of the university’s core Climate Action strategies. Most estimates indicate that approximately 40% of U.S. carbon emissions are associated with materials — how they’re produced, transported, used and disposed of.

“Therefore, reducing the amount of waste we generate is a critical part of reaching our goal of a climate-neutral campus,” Moscati says.

Expanding this initiative to student living spaces stems from several factors: the need for UB to comply with New York State law, results from a campus-wide waste audit and responding to student demand, Moscati says. In 2022, the university implemented a pilot ROT (recycling, organics, trash) collection system, beginning at One World Café, where students began to make informed decisions about where their waste would end up.

As part of the university’s Zero Waste Strategy, plans are underway to expand the ROT collection model to all campus buildings. The installations will be phased in over a period of years. The ROT equipment will be placed in public areas of buildings to ensure everyone on campus can participate in recycling and diverting organics from solid waste.

Last spring, staff from Sustainability and Residential Facilities, along with Ava Fetzner, a recent graduate and former zero waste student assistant, launched a pilot program at South Lake Village on the North Campus to explore options for introducing organics collection in on-campus apartments. The program provided 216 residents with leak-proof bags to collect food waste in their kitchens. Students were instructed to bring full bags to designated trash areas, where they could dispose of them in organics collection totes.

“These totes were co-located with existing trash and recycling bins, since students already bring their waste outside for disposal,” Moscati explains. “Rather than using small collection bins, compostable bags were provided, as most students take out the trash while heading to class — making bags a more practical option.”

The program was well received by South Lake staff and students, and end-of-semester feedback indicated they appreciated the opportunity to take action by reducing the amount of waste they generated.

“Student Life is pleased to partner with our colleagues from UB Sustainability to offer our students living in on-campus apartments the opportunity to help the university reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions by diverting organic waste from landfills,” says Christina Hernandez, senior associate vice president, Student Life. “Introducing organics collection into campus apartments is another significant step toward helping UB reach its carbon-neutrality goals.”

Students in participating apartments can place any food they would have eaten into their organics collection bag. This includes non-edible food items, such as coffee grounds, bones, shells, skins, pits, rinds and peels — as long as the stickers and plastic wrap have been removed. Compostable containers from most on-campus dining locations and some off-campus restaurants can also be placed in compost bags. Once full, these bags can be taken to the orange collection totes in on-campus apartment complex garbage and recycling collection areas.

“If you’re unsure whether a container is compostable, check to see if the word ‘compostable’ is clearly printed on it — note that compostable is not the same as biodegradable,” Moscati says. “Compostable containers are typically fiber-based, free of plastic and may feel soft after holding food for extended periods.”

Moscati recommends frequent disposal and storing bags in the refrigerator or freezer rather than on the counter. By doing so, even students unnerved by composting can take part in the program without unpleasant odors or attracting pests such as fruit flies. These easy changes in habits help keep the program running smoothly and can improve outcomes for everyone on campus, Moscati says.

To make the process more convenient for students living in campus apartments, the university simplified which items can be collected. Genevive Fontana, UB Sustainability’s communications and outreach student assistant, created magnets with images of items — separated into groups of “yes” and “no” — which were distributed to all students living in campus apartments at the beginning of the semester.

The office plans to further encourage participation by organizing a pumpkin composting event this fall, utilizing the new organics collection program.

In addition to mitigating waste, UB’s Climate Action Plan committee is working to align purchasing decisions with sustainability goals. A key focus is ensuring that products used on campus can be reused, refurbished or recycled, and reducing waste at the source — by making more sustainable purchasing choices — is the most effective strategy for minimizing UB’s overall environmental impact.

Although the program is not currently offered in residence halls, Moscati and the Sustainability team are planning to expand the program, prioritizing areas of campus identified as high-volume generators of food scraps.

More information about the program is available on the UB Sustainability website.