Campus Composting in Danger

Have you eaten at Redifer? Has the seemingly-complicated composting system confused you? Well pay close attention, since the university may eliminate the entire program.

Since 1997, Penn State’s Project Earth Grow has collected napkins and food waste from dining halls, campus hotels, and the daycare center. OPP amasses this hodgepodge of organic matter, about 342,000 pounds per year, and transforms it into compost at the Organic Materials Processing and Education Center.

Last fall, Redifer Commons unveiled the “biobase disposables,” plates and other containers which we can give right back into the Earth for smooth composting.

However, Redifer customers have been tossing these compostable items into the garbage instead of the nature bins (think trash bins painted with mountain scenery).

On Tuesday afternoons, Eco-Action members patrol the nature bins to educate customers on proper composting procedures. Essentially, they tell ignorant students to read the freakin signs and stop contaminating the bins.

However, these efforts may fall short. Onward State spoke with representatives of Project Green Grow, and apparently the university may terminate the biobase disposable program.

The fancy compostable containers cost much more money than regular paper or styrofoam alternatives. If Penn State cannot even reap the environmental benefits of the biobase disposables, then WE ARE… just wasting valuable university funds.

When in Redifer - deposit napkins in napkin bins, plastic silverware in garbage, bottles and cans in appropriate recycling bins, and biobase disposables in compost bins. You can even keep your food on the plates!

Click on the image below. Look at it. Study it. Make love to it if you wish. Compost whenever possible and enjoy the offerings of Redifer Commons.