By Students dining at Long Beach State may be surprised to learn that soiled paper waste is no longer composted anywhere on campus, despite signs on many compost bins that claim otherwise.
EDCO Disposal, the company that hauls the school’s waste, is only able to transport food waste because “[soiled] paper is a contaminant,” according to Kierstin Stickney, communications director for the 49er Shops. Food waste is processed at the Agromin waste facility in Chino.
LBSU was left without a facility to compost soiled paper waste after Athens Services decided to end its partnership with the school. Holli Fajack, sustainability coordinator at the Office of Sustainability and Eric Bryan, recycling center manager, believe that because Athens Services decided to take on a larger hauling project in Los Angeles, the company could no longer support composting efforts.
Associated Student Inc., the 49er Shops and the Office of Sustainability have maintained an ongoing collaborative effort to keep composting a component of Waste Not, the school’s program to have 90 percent of its waste diverted from landfills by 2030.
Fajack said the campus is in a “transitional moment,” which is why signs have not been updated. She believes keeping the signs up can help students get used to the idea of composting soiled paper until a new paper composting facility is found.
The Office of Sustainability removed compost bins from the University Library earlier this year. There are still bins in the University Student Union and the residential dining halls.
Sustain U, ASI’s sustainability component, is looking into replacing the compost bins. The most substantial challenge is finding cheap bins.
“Believe it or not, trash cans are exceedingly expensive,” Bryan said. “Because we want to make sure we are getting good quality ones, the bidding process for that … is long.”
ASI began the Compost Happens program in 2013, the university’s first composting program. After that, the program expanded to more areas on campus such as the University Library.
Now, composting is concentrated in smaller places, such as kitchens in restaurants and dining halls. This makes it easier to train staff to properly identify and sort through compost.
“[ASI] made it so there has to be trained individuals in the back to be able to say, ‘This isn’t compostable, this is’ and make sure [compost is] getting where it needs to be,” Bryan said.
Compost from the Agromin facility is turned into mulch that the school purchases to improve soil quality. This creates a “closed-loop” system, where waste comes back to the school in a useful form.
According to Bryan, the campus’ current goal is to change the quality of compost that is being shipped out to the Agromin facility. This means finding less plastic and metal trash within the compost bin by getting students familiar with the idea of sorting their waste. Right now, the school is looking for the best way to do this.
“Because compost[ing] is a cultural change that requires a lot of people to look at something that’s gross and see that it’s valuable, we need to make sure that we are as best equipped as possible to get that message across and to back it up with accurate action,” Bryan said.
