This semester, the transformation of organic waste into compost is trending on campus thanks to the collaboration of ECCO House, Outdoors House and Farm Club in the creation of a campus-wide composting initiative.
Dan Altman ’16 of Outdoors House and Ella Haysett ’16 of ECCO House, the coordinators of this project, saw composting at Wheaton as a way to reduce the amount of trash created at Wheaton while also supplying the newly founded Farm House/Farm Club with nutrient-filled compost to grow healthy vegetables and to save money on fertilizer.
Altman commented that he and Haysett saw both of their themed houses “as having one of the biggest responsibilities to sustainable environmentally-sound living on the Wheaton Campus.”
They viewed this initiative as a way to spread their eco-friendly way-of-life to the rest of the Wheaton campus.
Instead of organic waste being thrown into the trash and later brought to landfills to take up unnecessary space while releasing methane, composting will allow for such waste to be transformed into a nutrient-rich, soil-like material that can be used in gardens and lawns.
Their initiative has already begun on campus by providing all themed houses with compost buckets. Every week, a member of Farm Club will collect the filled compost buckets from the themed houses, bring them to WheaFarm, and then return a clean compost bucket back to all the houses involved. The process makes it easy to be involved; all you have to do is simply throw your compostable items in the bucket!
“It is our goal to incorporate as many functioning kitchens on the Wheaton campus into the compost program as possible,” Altman said, which would included “all the themed houses, the Lyon’s Den, and certain floors in dorms where people wish to participate.”
If you would live in a dorm and would like to get involved with this program, contact Dan Altman or Ella Hayslett for more information.
