November 25, 1998
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.