University of New Hampshire
Tier2-6: Post-Consumer Food Waste Composting

UNH University Hospitality Services collects between 25,000 - 40,000 lbs. of pre-consumer and post-consumer food waste per month. All UNH dining - Holloway Commons, Stillings, Philbrook, Huddleston, and the Memorial Union Building have installed food-waste pulpers to pulverize food waste into very small pieces and to extract liquid. The result is a dry paste-like material that composts quickly due to increased surface area, thereby increasing the speed with which the food waste decomposes which eliminates the problem of odor. The University Hospitality Services staff load buckets of waste onto their compost truck and take them out to Kingman Farm for composting. 100% of UNH Dining Halls run pre-consumer food waste composting programs. The total amount of pre-consumer food waste composted material is unknown, but combined with post-consumer food waste composted material totaled 92 tons in FY09.

In addition to all dining halls, there are composting receptacles at the UNH Dairy Bar. The Dairy Bar uses biodegradable and compostable to-go containers, cups, forks, knifes, spoons, plates, etc. that are collected, pulped and added to the UNH composting windrows. Composting bins are also put out (along with recycling and trash bins) at key UNH events like Commencement and University Day.