Northern Arizona University
OP-T2-7: Pre-Consumer Food Waste Composting

For several years the Students for Sustainable Living and Urban Gardening (SSLUG) group on campus has worked with the South Dining facility (The Dub) to collect pre-consumer food waste to be composted in the SSLUG garden. This compost is then used in the community garden maintained by the same group. The group collects roughly 200 lbs of pre-consumer waste per week to be composted. This past year a much more exciting initiative has been implemented. With funding from the University's Green Fund, State TRIF Funding, and funding from across the university an NAU Campus Composting Program has been implemented. The NAU Campus Composting Program collects pre-consumer food material from almost every dining location on campus, including coffee shops and satellite locations. The material is collected at each location in small buckets. These buckets are then picked up by the NAU Velo Composting team, which is a student coordinated bike composting transportation method. All of the material is collected and transported to a location on campus where major composting efforts are taking place. With the help of the Grounds department, Dining Services, Velo Composting, and many other partners we have been able to lay the foundation for a large scale composting program for the entire campus.