Composting in Dining Halls

Siena College is proud to announce that beginning in March of 2018, we started to compost food waste through Natural Upcycling at Massry dining hall... Now it's in Lonnstrom!

The AVI dining staff in Massry divert food waste from the kitchen that would otherwise be thrown away, to bins that are collected by Natural Upcycling and re-purposed. This system helps reduce food waste that would otherwise go to a landfill by converting food waste to usable materials.

Natural Upcycling is a company based out of Western New York that serves areas across Pennsylvania, Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland and New York. The company’s focus is, “...to collect organic or food waste and turn it into a renewable resource – such as electricity or natural gas.” Through a customized waste disposal program, they will assist Siena in collecting food waste that will be collected and then composted in one of their own facilities. Natural Upcycling recycles over 1,500,000 pounds of food waste per month. This reduces carbon dioxide pollution by 810,000 pounds, or the equivalent of taking 1,569 cars off the road per year!

Up to 40 percent of the food that we have in the United States is never eaten. The USDA defines food waste as, “the component of food loss that occurs when an edible item goes unconsumed, as in food discarded by retailers due to color or appearance and plate waste by consumers.” This phenomena causes major problems to the environment. The breakdown of food in landfills contributes to an increase in methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Food waste also has implications on energy use and the amount of water wasted to grow crops that we don’t eat. Project Drawdown ranks food waste reduction as the third most important step for reducing emissions and reversing climate change.

Composting helps to solve some of these food waste issues. By composting our food waste at Siena, we will reduce our methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, as well as divert much of our food waste from landfills and converting it to organic matter that can be used in farming and other applications. Feel free to contact any of the sustainability scholars with questions regarding composting on campus!

Since 2018, pre-consumer composting has been moved from Massry dining hall, and is now implemented in the main Lonnstrom dining hall! They plan on moving it soon into the dish room, where food that has not been eaten can be sorted and then composted, AKA post-consumer composting.

Stay tuned!