By Alex Borreil
Staff Writer
Odell’s has a new composting system that has been set up by the Office of Sustainability. This effort was put in place to help reduce the amount of waste that is continuously put into our landfills each year. But there is question on whether or not students will be loyal to the system.
On August 30th, the Office of Sustainability said on their Instagram that they had just handed out brand new composting buckets to all of the Odell’s units.
According to the post, this is the first time that Odell’s has had a composting system that is supported by the school.
The school itself has had a composting method set up in Scandling for a few years, although it has not before been set up in student housing affiliations.
Patrick Gray, who lives in one of the Odell’s unit says that he believes composting is a great idea “Composting is great for the environment because it keeps food waste out of the landfills. Therefore, distributing the buckets around the school is a great effort in trying to go green.”
The composting buckets given out are sealed off, army green, buckets labeled with a fun diagram that consists of a list of food items that are allowed to be composted, accompanied with some pictures.
The Office of Sustainability of Hobart and William Smith is an office on campus that helps, direct and facilitate sustainable projects around campus.
One of the student run programs that help the office of sustainability are the ecoreps, who help encourage fellow HWS students to be sustainable. This new composting project is just one of many projects that have been introduced to the Colleges by students and staff to help decrease our ecological footprint.
Questions may arise asking what is so important about compost? This is answered on their Instagram post with a caption saying “Why compost? Because according to the Ontario County Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), about 60% of items in the landfill could be recycled / composted. Once composted, the items can be turned into fertile soil!”
In Gray’s unit, they use the compost system a lot “the people I live with use the compost bucket all the time. I live in a suite that has a kitchen, and so we do a lot of cooking, which produces a lot of food scraps”
This fertile soil is important and extremely useful for gardens with growing vegetables. Using the composting system also means that there will be less overall waste going into our landfills. Overall meaning we are decreasing a bit of our ecological footprint and following the sustainable lifestyle of reducing and reusing.
This new systems success will be dependent on the students who live in each unit. Gray’s unit is lucky, “I know we will always use the compost bucket. I live with an eco-rep, and so she taught us what can and cannot go in the compost bucket. Otherwise, we get in trouble and receive a lesson on how to correctly use the compost bucket.”
As school gets rolling and students start to settle into their new homes at Odell’s, it will be interesting to see as people start to get busy with school work and campus life.