Middlebury College Joins Addison County Solid

Waste District as Partner in Composting Pilot Project

College to Compost Food Waste from Local Schools

and Businesses

Middlebury College and the Addison County Solid Waste

Management District (ACSWMD) have become partners in a pilot project

to convert food waste, which was previously deposited in landfills,

into composted material. Under the partnership agreement, ACSWMD

officials expect to begin in early 1999 to collect food waste

an estimated two to three times a week from restaurants, grocery

stores, and public schools. ACSWMD will then deliver the material

to the existing Middlebury College compost facility for processing.

The pilot project will contribute significant additional food

waste to the 300 tons that the College currently diverts from

landfills through its own food waste composting program.

The partnership’s benefits are economic as well as

environmental. While the pilot project enables the ACSWMD to explore

new methods of converting large volumes of waste to compost, participating

businesses and schools will experience a reduction in their refuse

removal costs as a result of separating food waste from other

garbage. During the pilot project, the College will continue to

pay for its existing equipment, labor, and site preparation. The

ACSWMD will not have to pay these expenses, with the exception

of a modest fee for the use of the College’s composting facility.

The College, which has converted food waste to usable compost

for several years, will have an increased supply of the material

to add to soil on campus and to planters, which the dining services

department uses to grow herbs.

According to David Ginevan, the College’s executive

vice president and treasurer, “The College is involved in

the pilot project in an ongoing effort to be a responsible environmental

citizen and to provide a service to the greater Addison County

community.

“The food waste contributed by the ACSWMD will

be well within the amount that the College’s composting facility

is capable of processing, and the pilot project coincides with

the College’s effort to improve and expand its composting operation,”

added Ginevan.

The partnership will benefit from recent improvements

the College has made to its composting program. A new specially

designed collection vehicle provides for the daily collection

of food waste from all College dining service operations. When

full, it is emptied into an enclosed container that in turn is

emptied onto a new concrete compost pad. Compost ingredients are

mixed on the pad and there the composting begins. The site is

located west of the campus on College-owned land.

The College’s composting method combines food waste

with both horse manure from the University of Vermont Morgan Horse

Farm in Weybridge and wood chips. Called a windrow composting

process, food waste is arranged on top of drainage pipes placed

perpendicularly to the entire pile of compost. A six-inch layer

of horse manure then covers the pile and enables the materials

to break down within a few months. Once the food waste has completed

composting, it is readied for use on the College landscape.

Middlebury College began separating and collecting

food waste from its waste stream in 1993, initially trucking it

once a month to AgriCycle, a chicken farm and composting operation

in Buskirk, N.Y. At AgriCycle the food waste was mixed with chicken

manure, grocery store waste, and paper mill sludge to create a

landfill cover product certified by the New York Department of

Environmental Conservation. Wishing to save diesel fuel and retain

the compost for its own use, the College began to compost food

waste locally in 1996, first through the Intervale Composting

Project in Burlington and then at its own facility.

The ACSWMD is a public body that oversees solid waste

management and recycling on behalf of its 19 member towns. The

composting agreement with Middlebury College is one of several

the ACSWMD hopes to set up as part of a composting network in

Addison County.

For more information, contact Norm Cushman, assistant

director for maintenance and operations, at Middlebury College

at 802-443-5003; or Steve Maier, district manager, at ACSWMD at

802-388-2333.