Before a group of UVA students became interested in developing an alternative for leftover food from the Observatory Hill dining hall, uneaten mac and cheese or wilted salad was ending up in the garbage can. But that was then. On November 11, UVA kicked off the first of perhaps many trips to Panorama Pay-Dirt in Earlysville, where the food waste will be composted.
With University officials, representatives from Aramark and students as their witness, three 30-gallon barrels of food waste were loaded onto a truck at the O-Hill dining hall and driven just eight miles down the road to begin the composting process.
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Nothing makes the stomach growl like huge barrels full of decomposing organic matter that used to be lunch. |
“It really started as a student-driven initiative,” says Jessica Wenger, UVA environmental management systems coordinator. “They really worked on figuring out the logistics, and making the connection in trying to figure out how we can actually make it happen.”
The project was born in the seminar “Designing a Sustainable Future” and when third-year Daniel Michaelson took it over, his goal was to “make composting happen,” he says, “and from there on out, the rest is history, I guess.”
Michaelson and Wenger, among others, worked closely with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to get UVA a composting permit, which meant circumventing complicated federal regulations. UVA ended up with a permit exemption for educational purposes.
Currently, UVA is giving the food waste to Panorama Pay-Dirt for free. “We are all using this as a learning curve and we are going to see how it goes,” says Wenger. Since O-Hill dining hall went trayless, Wenger says, the amount of food waste coming from students has decreased, making it the perfect testing location. “We wanted to make sure that it works for everyone and we hope to expand it to other dining halls,” she says.
Panorama Pay-Dirt founder Steve Murray says the added cost to his operation is very minimal, but if UVA were to expand its composting operations considerably, “there may be a tipping fee,” he says. But, he adds, there are larger considerations. “The biggest thing is that it is the right thing to do,” says Murray. “It’s counterproductive to be putting food waste into a landfill.”
Once the food waste is at Panorama Pay-Dirt, Murray says, his company will mix it with wood chips as a carbon source and heat it for several days at 140 degrees to kill any pathogens that may be hazardous for later use. Approximate time to become usable compost? Five or six months.
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