From Scraps to Farm to Table
Composting program cuts down school’s food waste
Butterfield Farm owner Larry Hardin examines some of the tomatoes growing at his farm. Hardin operates several compost piles on the farm to help fertilize his plants. Some of the items he uses to make his compost come from ASMSA’s Dolphin Bay Café. Hardin was approached by Shawn Chen (‘22) about helping ASMSA start a composting program that would reduce the amount of food waste by the school’s kitchen. 26
Every day, the Dolphin Bay Café produces food waste that is the natural result of cooking for around 250 students and employees. Not every part of every fruit and vegetable can’t be used in prepared dishes. All of that waste can fill up a garbage container quickly. So when Shawn Chen (’22) began looking for a way the Student Government Association Food Committee could help solve a campus issue, finding a use for the waste became the focus of his efforts. “When you look in the trash can on a normal day there is a lot of food waste,” Chen said. “Working in the cafeteria gave me an inside look at how they prepare food and how much waste it could produce.” Terry Bryant, campus food services director for Aladdin, was on board with finding a solution to the challenge. He had a discussion about composting the year before but couldn’t really find a student interested in taking on the project. “We produce so many vegetable scraps. It’s all the raw stuff; nothing that has been seasoned. The ends. The peels. We can produce 30 gallons of scraps fairly quickly,” he said. Chen’s first idea was possibly starting a garden on campus and use the waste to start a compost pile for it. A lack of space and the time commitment for the project forced him to reconsider his options. That’s when he decided to find someone off-campus who could use
