UCSB has an impressive composting infrastructure that is getting better every day. There are  programs in place that process compostable waste both on and off-site, and a large portion are nearly invisible to the campus community as a whole. Like recycling, several departments all play a role in composting waste. Here’s how it’s currently described on the DPW website.

Compost Drop-Off Bins

Anyone at UCSB can use one of the DPW compost drop-off bins for any food or compostable products! They are located at the Arbor, Coral Tree, Courtyard Cafe, the Ellison courtyard, behind the UCen and in the Bren courtyard. Most are large units with yellow doors, but some look just like other recycling bins on campus (except for the label of course!) This compost is added to DPW’s commercial compost pickup.

Paper Towel Composting

The AS Zero Waste Committee began a paper towel composting program in the Ellison Hall restrooms in 2013. Students initiated the project by auditing paper towel waste for each floor in the building on a daily basis to check the effectiveness of signage and rate of contamination. When the pilot was deemed successful, collection was turned over to the building’s custodial staff as part of their regular duties. Paper towel composting is being expanded across campus as resources permit.

Family Housing Compost

Both Storke and West Campus Family Housing complexes have their own on-site composting programs! Residents drop off their kitchen food waste in the igloo-shaped bins located near the garden plots, and Department of Public Worms staff mix it in with the actual composting piles at a controlled rate. To avoid pests, pathogens and odors, please do not put meat, dairy, or oils in the bins. Once a pile has finished composting, it will be turned over to the residents for use in their gardens!

Vermicompost

Department of Public Worms students pick up food scraps from the Ortega and De La Guerra Dining Commons kitchens and feed it to thousands of red wriggler composting worms. These worms turn unwanted food scrap into amazing compost and liquid fertilizers that can noticeably improve garden plants. DPW Worm Tea is used on campus and available for purchase by the general public. It has fed many a garden over the years.

Grounds to Grounds

Grounds to Grounds is another major on-site composting program. Facilities’ grounds staff collect buckets of used coffee grounds and filters from the campus coffee carts each day and add them straight into the campus landscaping beds where they break down quickly and add plenty of nitrogen to the soil! You may have heard that coffee grounds are too acidic to be used directly like this, but in reality almost all of the acid is washed out during the brewing process. This very simple program composts about 2 tons of coffee grounds each month, with huge peaks during finals week of course!

Composting at the Dining Commons and UCen

DPW’s student staff collects food waste from several dining halls on campus including De la Guerra, Ortega, and Carrillo. They sort out worm food from the collections and feed each of their 8′ x 4′ worm bins about 100 lbs of food each week. The rest of the food that is not suitable for vermicomposting is processed through a solar heated hot compost system. Because their process is a relatively small-scale project, they unfortunately cannot process any meats, dairy, or oils.

DPW’s on-site composting programs collectively divert about 5 tons of food waste from landfills each month. That may seem like a lot, but it’s nothing in comparison to the quantity of food waste being generated at the Housing and Residential Services Dining Commons and at the UCen. Both departments compost all scraps from the kitchen (peels, stems, the parts that don’t make it onto your plate). The Dining Commons also compost everything students send back to be cleaned after they’re finished eating. Several outlets at the UCen, such as Root 217, Romaine’s, and Starbucks, have converted to all compostable products, and more are following.

Collectively, these two departments compost about 90 tons of food waste every month. DPW is in no way equipped to deal with quantities this large on campus, so all Dining Commons (other than the small portion that DPW takes for the worms) and UCen food waste is picked up once a week by Marborg and taken to Engel & Gray a commercial composting facility in Santa Maria.

There are several advantages to using a commercial composting facility. Most importantly, Engel & Gray allows DPW to compost almost 20 times as much food waste as it would otherwise be able to handle on site, and therefore makes UCSB one of the better composting campuses in the country. It also allows DPW to compost a wider variety of materials, including meat, dairy and oils, that are not a problem for a large scale facility but can cause huge issues in a small system. Engel & Gray’s 90-day cycle, as opposed to the 45-day cycle most facilities use, lets DPW use compostable plates, utensils, and other items and be assured that they will completely break down.