Be the We

This column will feature the We Conserve program and its work on campus.

We Conserve is about building campus partnerships at UW–Madison to help protect the environment; an innovative composting project is just one example of a collaboration that works.

The university’s environmental stewardship initiative had the idea to begin composting food waste from across campus. But making the program a reality depended on partnerships among housing, athletics, the Wisconsin Union, Physical Plant Waste and Recycling, the School of Business and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

These groups are participating in the composting project by changing their operations to separate compostable pre-consumer waste, or the food scraps discarded in the preparation of meals. That waste is then delivered to the university’s West Madison Agricultural Research Station for composting.

The partnership has made some impressive gains, while capitalizing on some of the ecological and economic benefits of composting.

As pre-consumer waste accounts for 80 percent of UW–Madison’s food refuse, the impact of this program is remarkable. Nearly four tons of scraps, peels, grounds and eggshells are already being diverted from the landfill to the compost heap each week, and the hope is to reach 400 tons by the end of the fiscal year.

Not only is the university saving money by reducing landfill fees, composting also has beneficial effects on the environment. For example, normal decomposition of food in landfills produces methane, a gas 22 times more harmful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Composting eliminates this problem. A further benefit is that the addition of food waste to existing piles of yard and livestock waste has improved the quality of the compost, much of which is recycled back into the university community for use in such places as the Eagle Heights gardens.

Composting is not a hugely complex operation, but a simple way in which the university is becoming more efficient and environmentally responsible.

We Conserve is working across campus to conserve energy, save resources and encourage environmental awareness on a broad scale and in everyday life. To accomplish these goals, partnerships and collaborations in the campus and the community are vital. The composting project is just one area in which We Conserve is helping to build bridges and instill the spirit of environmental stewardship to make the campus better today and for the future.

To learn more about the effort and what you can do to, visit the We Conserve website.