Whether you’re living in a Transitional Living Area (TLA) or renting a house around campus, there’s a new feature available for you to add to your kitchen: a composting bin!
The project is run by Augie Acres, a group of Augustana students dedicated to teaching about gardening, discussing issues with food consumption and insecurities and promoting healthy ecological practices. The group recently began its composting campaign by creating composting bins. With seventeen bins finished and more on the way, Augie Acres has started distributing the bins to students who have signed up to practice composting in their homes.
Junior Ian Empen, President of Augie Acres, described how the bins work for students and how students can manage their composting.
“What the current program entails is that students, mostly upperclassmen in TLAs or houses, receive a compost bin that they fill with the proper material, which is often fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, paper, cardboard [and] things that are organic,” Empen said. “[Students] will collect that material and take it down to the garden whenever they see fit.”
Students can drop their compost off at Augie Acres whenever they want. On work days, Augie Acres workers will take that compost and process it for future use.
Junior Lexie Seten, a student participating in the composting program, said that Augie Acres has made the entire composting process very simple and accessible for students.
“It’s very easy,” Seten said. “We picked up our bin, and we keep it in our kitchen. Augie Acres gave us a sheet of what could or could not go in, so it’s easy to understand if you have no prior experience with composting.”
An additional bonus of composting on campus is that everything is local for students. Augie Acres is located by Lindberg, making it a short trip for many students when their bins fill up and need to be dumped.
Augie Acres takes the compost collected for their garden and uses it to create more nutrient-rich soil for their crops. Once those crops are harvested, the food is distributed among several groups, including Augie Acres students, the dining hall and food pantries throughout the Quad Cities.
Junior Tom Gruber, compost coordinator for Augie Acres, said that another benefit of this program is how it positively impacts the Augustana environment.
“One of the main benefits is actively combating climate change on campus and creating a better ecological footprint,” Gruber said. “I don’t know the exact numbers, but if I remember correctly, food waste accounts for 35 percent of carbon emissions. So, by having a way to reduce some of that, like greens for compost, vegetables and stuff like that, you can greatly reduce your carbon footprint on campus.”
The group hopes to continue to expand their composting project on campus in the future. Augie Acres previously worked with Augustana dining services on campus and looks forward to possibly restarting that partnership again in the future.
“We’re focused more on the student side of it for now,” Empen said. “With the prices of food increasing, dining services are more limited on how much they can help with activities like this. That might be more costly, and it comes out of their budget at the end, but hopefully, long term, we could maybe set up a system with them.”
With more and more students joining in on composting, Augie Acres is excited about the growth in awareness for our environment around campus and looks forward to seeing how far this work will go in the community.