Stanford composting efforts are alive and kicking this year as all dining halls, most Row houses and Tresidder Union restaurants continue to pursue the Farm’s goal of going green.

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Sammy Abusrur

Outside of the Stern dining hall, the remains of breakfast await transportation to a compost facility. Waste disposal facilities charge less per ton for compost than garbage, and some of the material is reused to fertilize gardens on campus.

The composting program, which is coordinated by the Peninsula Sanitary Service Inc. (PSSI), was first introduced at the Wilbur dining hall in 2003. Together with recycling programs, officials say composting has diverted 61 percent of Stanford’s waste from landfills to more environmentally friendly uses.

PSSI Manager of Community Relations Julie Muir has headed the composting program since its inception. While Muir said that initially only cafeteria workers and dining officials received information about how to compost organic waste correctly, the education effort has now been extended to the general student population.

“The reason composting started at dining halls is because students don’t have to do it themselves,” said Erin Gaines ‘06, the sustainable food coordinator for Stanford Dining. “In a dining hall, you only have to train the staff, as opposed to training every single person at a Row house or Mirrielees.”

While the composting program has spread to many campus residences and eating establishments this year, some students find that participation remains an inconvenience. Cara Brook ‘10 said she has faced challenges while trying to compost at Mirrielees.

Brook, who is a member of the environmental student group Students for a Sustainable Stanford, said that she and her roommates created a waste bin in their room for compostable materials. But when they tried to take the organic waste to a compost bin near Toyon — because Mirrielees doesn’t have its own bin — they found it padlocked, forcing them to take their waste into a dining hall for disposal.

Gaines said that the compost bins had been padlocked as a precaution: an entire compost bin can be ruined by irresponsible students who might throw non-biodegradable trash into it.

But padlocks on compost bins near Toyon may not be the only factor deterring composting among Mirrielees’ residents. The lack of composting locations near the large East Campus apartment building creates extra work for students wishing to separate their waste properly.

“Walking to a distant compost bin at night with a big bag of trash is not exactly the most exciting thing to be doing,” Brook said. “People aren’t inherently anti-composting or anti-recycling. It’s just not a priority for them unless it’s made convenient.”

Expanding the compost program has been an economical decision for the University. Per-ton waste disposal rates show that compost facilities charge only $30 per ton of garbage treatment while the landfill charges $44 per ton. In addition, 50 percent of the waste that is sent to compost facilities returns for use in projects at Stanford. For example, compost is used in the community gardens in Escondido Village as a soil amendment. The remainder of the compost is sold by the facilities for a profit.

Although the financial benefits of composting were a factor in the decision to expand the program, officials said that the social and ecological benefits of organic waste disposal also played a role.

“If we could divert all the organic stream of our waste, that would do wonders for the environment,” Muir said.

She said she hopes that the composting program can be extended even further, to academic departments and University activities such as New Student Orientation, for which PSSI handled organic waste this year.

Contact Michael Ding at mikeding@stanford.edu.