Student envisions composting program
Becky Gradisar photo by Erin Ball.
In nature, waste doesn’t exist. Nature has a way of harnessing the energy and nutrients of decaying matter and turning it into new growth.
At Camosun College, it’s a little more complicated—the campus has to collect each and every piece of waste produced here and send it to be processed and disposed of.
Camosun student Becky Gradisar is working to divert some of that waste and put nutrients back into the earth, even on a busy college campus.
Gradisar is currently in her first year of Camosun’s Environmental Tech program and plans to transfer to Royal Roads to complete a bachelor degree in Environmental Science. She also wants to volunteer at the Greater Victoria Compost Education Center (GVCEC) in Fernwood later this year.
“I’m all about composting,” says Gradisar. “I compost everything at home—I’m really into it.”
Gradisar is raising funds to implement a system to deal with the organic materials that are currently not making it into the compost bins located in the campus cafeteria. She plans to raise enough money to purchase several Green Cone Digesters to place in various locations throughout the Lansdowne campus.
Using a digester is the easiest way to compost food scraps, according to the GVCEC. There’s no turning involved and they don’t need to be harvested. While most other types of composts can’t handle meat, dairy, and processed foods, the digesters can take any type of organic waste.
“If you can put in your mouth, you can put it in the composter,” says Gradisar. “There’s no maintenance, there’s no turning, just drop it and forget it.”
The organic material is placed in the digester, broken down by bacteria and converted to nutrient-rich water that’s absorbed by the ground around it. One of the benefits of using a digester is that the waste doesn’t have to be picked up and shipped to a facility to be processed.
Camosun’s current compost bins are supplied by Refuse, a company that replaces the full bins with empty ones on a regular basis. The full bins are trucked to Refuse’s facility in Cobble Hill to sort and process the material.
Although Refuse’s bins are clearly marked, Gradisar has noticed students and staff putting compostable items in the garbage bins next to the compost bins.
“I hate it so much when I see people throw away things that can be composted or recycled,” says Gradisar.
To address the problem she plans on putting up signs indicating what can go into the compost bins in the cafeteria as well as what can go into the digesters in the ground.
But even with clear signage, Gradisar worries that compostable waste will still end up in the garbage and, ultimately, the Hartland landfill.
“I really feel like the hardest thing is going to be getting people to use them once they’re there,” she says.
UVic has a similar composting system on campus. The campus has bins placed around the grounds that are for compost only.
While they’re able to divert 33 tonnes of organic waste each month, they still have problems with the wrong items going in to compost bins.
“Contamination is slightly high,” says Nadia Arif, coordinator of waste reduction at UVic. “But people understand when they see a green tote, it’s for compost.”
Composting might soon be on everyone’s minds.
The Capital Regional District (CRD) is now working towards a 30-percent reduction in waste entering the landfill.
After a two-year pilot program that included curbside pickup of kitchen scraps, the CRD is expected to place a ban on organic waste at the landfill by 2012.
“Solid-waste management is something we should all be practicing,” says Anna Colangeli, chair of Camosun’s Environmental Tech program. “Landfills are filling up. Organic waste needs to be diverted from the landfills. What we don’t want is Camosun’s organics ending up at Hartland.”
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