We started composting!

Hi!

Sorry it has taken so long to update you! But this past semester has been really busy. Alex, Polly, and I have been running around campus trying to get all the details finalized to start composting at The University of Arizona. We added a new member to our team, Chet Philips: our graduate assistant for sustainability. He has helped us out so much and we owe a lot of our successes to him.

Here is a quick summary of everything that has happened in the past four months:

1. The compost project got approved! UA will compost pre-consumer food from the Student Union, green waste from Facilities Management, and horse manure from the campus farm. Our hard work and dedication was recognized in the Arizona Daily Wildcat:

http://wildcat.arizona.edu/news/campus-dirty-dealings-1.1824299

Picture of Alex, Polly, and I at the Campus Agriculture Center - site for the university's windrow composting system.

2. We hired 5 student workers to collect the pre-consumer food waste from the union, transport it to the Agriculture Center, and maintain the windrows. Our new employees are Patrick, Jessica, Andie, Maura, and Sarah. We are very excited they joined our team!

3. On January 31^st, 2011 we started composting! We started collecting food waste from the union and facilities management dropped off green waste to the composting site. All the hard work paid off and UA became the first student organized and student employed composting university in the nation: how exciting.

Hope that gets you up to date and look forward to more posts (on a regular basis).

Thanks for reading!