A visit to CA’s Dining Hall, and you’ll notice more than the outdoor garden and the selection of fresh and locally grown foods. You’ll see plenty of recycling and composting bins. What you won’t find are big trashcans.
One small waste bin is located in the kitchen’s food prep area, where only rubber gloves and hairnets are thrown away. All other items, including unusable scraps, are either recycled or composted.
According to CA’s food services operation, only rubber gloves and hairnets are thrown away. CA can feed more than 1,000 people daily and have less than one small can of waste.
When the composting operation in the Dining Hall was introduced four years ago, CA reduced its landfill waste from nearly 600 lbs. per day to less than 10 lbs. per week. Says CA Director of Operations, Jesse Schumacher, “The school can buy back as much compost as it needs to nourish all the flower beds annually, a wonderful way to put our food waste back to good use.”