From Nic Anderson, Interim Director of Auxiliary Services:

“Composting is now required to be provided. While the state law does not specifically state that it shall be in every building on campus, we are taking the spirit of the law, in providing the opportunity for 100% of compostable materials to make it into the correct stream. Lofty goal. 

August 12 was the day we rolled out that plan that we have been working on for months now. You will see that Casella delivered compost totes to trash locations all over campus (16 new ones today) and physical plant crew has been hard at work distributing larger composting bins than we have ever had to each residence hall, for placement as close to the main entry as possible, both for visibility as well as to catch as much casual tossing as possible. 

Sodexo have been working with multiple vendors to be able to provide 100% compostable everything for the take out items (which unfortunately we will see much much more of this semester), all the way down to the “plastic” bag that a napkin and cutlery will be pre-packaged in. Cups will have strawless lids (for those that have to take out). The ONLY thing that will not be compostable that we have left is those little ketchup and mustard packets. 

You will also see, starting in the academic buildings, compost bins located in every bathroom that has paper towel dispensers, to stop sending brown paper to the landfill. The larger ‘bag hanger’ compost bins in multi-stall bathrooms also got a facelift over the summer with new clear labels, on green lids (replacing some of the blue ones that had taped signs over them). 

Casella have had their marketing team working on new educational materials such as posters for bathrooms and for the new entry compost bins, as well as informational banners at trash enclosure locations such as Finney Quad and 194SPS to help educate those that are about to throw something, where they should sort it out. These will be rolling out as soon as they complete them and produce the physical product.”